Death's Manager
by SilverWolf7007
Summary: “After waking up soaked in milk amid shouting, screaming, and possible murder, Harry was willing to bet his Firebolt, Hedwig and his entire collection of Weasley jumpers that the day was only going to get weirder…”
1. Milk

_**Death's Manager**_

_Courtesy of SilverWolf7007_

_**Chapter One – Milk**_

_**Or, Odd Mornings All Around**_

After waking up soaked in milk amid shouting, screaming, and possible murder, and then finding his dorm mates equally soaked, blaming each other and attempting said murder, Harry was willing to bet his Firebolt, Hedwig and his entire collection of Weasley jumpers that the day was only going to get weirder.

Slowly, he sat up and examined the surrounding chaos.

The entire dorm was saturated, and there was at least three centimetres of milk turning the floor into a miniature lake.

Dean was blaming Ron, whose face was even redder than his hair. Ron was adamant that he'd had nothing to do with it. Their shouting was somewhat distracted, as they were both also attempting to wring the milk out of their robes for the day.

Looking over to the other bickering pair, Harry recalled the threats of murder that had awoken him. It was not, as he'd first believed, Seamus trying to kill Neville. It was Neville, displaying uncharacteristic violence, who was alternately throttling and trying to smother a struggling Seamus.

It was time, Harry decided, to bring out his secret weapon. He stood up on his bed, took a deep breath, and yelled; "Do you lot want me to bring Hermione in here?"

The effect was instantaneous. All four boys froze, and the only sound left was the faint trickle of milk from Dean and Ron's robes into the mini lake.

Harry narrowed his eyes at his friends suspiciously. "What the hell is going on?" he demanded, stepping off his bed and into the milk. "Ew. Milk is evil," he declared.

Seamus, who agreed, just shrugged. "We actually don't have clue, Harry. I was just thinking, between the strangulation and the suffocation, that we ought to check and see if it's just the dorm or if the whole tower, or even the entire school, has been drenched."

"That's…actually a good plan," Ron admitted. "Anyone volunteering to investigate?"

Dean and Seamus exchanged wary glances. Neville rolled his eyes impatiently and spoke up at the same time as Harry.

"Gryffindors my – "

Ron cleared his throat and glared at them reprovingly, obviously channelling his girlfriend. "Right, Harry and Neville, you two go do that. We'll try to dry some clothes off while you're gone."

"Try a cleaning charm before a drying charm," Harry suggested as he followed Neville to the door.

The blond boy pulled it open, and the milk, which had risen another two centimetres, preceded them out the door. Harry took that to be a good sign and headed for the stairs, Neville on his heels.

As his feet left the wooden floorboards and hit the first carpeted step, Harry felt it squish under his feet, liquid squeezing between his toes. Feeling utterly disgusted, he continued downwards.

Once they arrived at the bottom of the stairs, their hopes were dashed. Hermione, Lavender and Parvati were sitting on a couch by the fireplace, each making sure to keep her feet on the damp couch and out of the knee high milk lake that their Common Room had been transformed into.

Harry and Neville braved the milk and perched on either arm of an armchair across from the girls.

"Good morning," Hermione greeted them. She was met with two stony glares.

"There is nothing, I repeat nothing, good about this morning, Hermione," Harry stated irritably. "Its covered in milk, its far too early, and – "

Neville and the girls never found out what the third thing Harry thought was wrong with the morning was, because at that moment a thick black fog surrounded him, and when it faded mere seconds later, he was gone.

* * *

There are many jobs more straining than being Death's Manger. For instance, there was being Death. There was also being Death's Manager's Assistant, Death's Manager's Fairy Godfather, and yes; there was even being the Tooth Fairy.

Actually, none of that was true, Tom reflected, glaring at the file currently sitting on his desk. As Death's Manager, he was the one who had to do the paperwork. He simply couldn't trust his assistant, Kyra, to do a thorough enough job. Death, on the opposite end, didn't do any paperwork other than signing a few forms. All he had to do was show up when people died.

As for Tom's Fairy Godfather…well, he didn't do anything much, these days. Tom was twenty years old, and therefore his legal guardian…didn't have legal say. But despite that, the man still hung around almost daily.

There was one other thing the Fairy Godfather did, and that was be a devoted boyfriend to his partner of almost a year, the Tooth Fairy.

Still glaring at the file, Tom sighed and thought wistfully of the year before. Eleven months ago his father, Death's previous Manager Luke, had been killed. Luke had, showing better judgement than anyone had given him credit for, named his son as his successor.

After a large amount of people running about (generally searching for Tom), he accepted the job. He had intended to whip Kyra and Death into shape, being that they'd been working under his father's disorganisation for twenty years.

It was a tough job. Kyra no longer spent office hours throwing paper balls into a bin on her desk, and Death no longer played Go Fish with his Manager or Solitaire with himself (mainly as Tom had had a burning for every deck of cards in the building).

Tom was still somewhat surprised that his Fairy Godfather and the Tooth Fairy were still a couple. They had hated each other until that day eleven months ago, when, after bonding over panic about Tom's whereabouts, the Fairy Godfather had asked her on a date.

The job wasn't really what was bothering Tom. Nor was it the unexpectedly empty office he was working in that morning. On the contrary, the quiet was a relief.

But Tom was, to put it simply, utterly bored.

When he was nine, he'd been kidnapped by the Tooth Fairy. It had been…an interesting experience, if nothing else, but it had resulted in his father's paranoia. He had been watched over by Luke, Kyra or his Fairy Godfather constantly until he was nineteen.

Then there was the excitement over the Manager's position. He had thought the tedium of constant surveillance was finally over, that his life was about to gain less boredom.

He had been very, very wrong.

Thankful that he'd given Kyra and Death the day off and that no one else had shown up, Tom gave up and placed the file back in the cabinet. He pulled open the draw marked 'P' and pulled out the one file in the entire office that still baffled him.

The file of Harry James Potter, born on the thirty-first of July 1981.

According to the file, the kid was supposed to be dead. Sixteen years ago, some mass murderer type wizard had tried to kill him and failed. But he wasn't supposed to have.

Tom wanted to put the whole fiasco down to his father's incompetence and leave it at that. But he had been able to work out the other problems. This one still defied solving.

The first instance, however, wasn't the last.

Harry James Potter was apparently the sort of kid who gets involved in numerous messes, because there were many, many possible deaths.

The most notable began when the boy was eleven, and was nearly killed by that same mass murderer guy who possessed some spineless idiot. When the boy was twelve, he had been bitten by a giant deadly snake. That was followed by a fall from his broom at an impossibly high position, the rebirth of that mass murderer, Voldie, several other encounters with him, several other encounters involving brooms…and several other less remarkable events, including a new addition – Harry had nearly drowned in milk just that morning.

Tom was stuck, but before he had the chance to really get into pondering the non-death of Harry James Potter, he was startled by the appearance of a large cloud of black fog.

Seconds later it cleared away, and Tom's jaw dropped in shock. Standing before him, wearing red pyjamas covered with glittery silver snakes and soaked with milk, was Harry James Potter himself.

* * *

I can honestly say I have no idea what I was thinking when I began this…nor do I have any idea why I've continued. But hey, it's so fun...

But as I've begun the fourth chapter, I decided it was about time I actually posted the damn thing, instead of allowing it to sit around and mope.

Ah well.

Please review!

S. Wolf


	2. Did I Miss Something?

_**Death's Manager**_

_Courtesy of SilverWolf7007_

_**Chapter Two - Did I Miss Something?**_

_**Or, The Signs of Badness**_

Albus Dumbledore was not only stumped, but also rather irritated to boot.

When he had awoken, he had been cold and wet, due to what seemed to be a random inside downpour of milk. He took this as a bad sign.

Nevertheless, being that he was Albus Dumbledore, he took this in his stride and rose to face the day.

Five minutes and the majority of his outfit for the day later, he had encountered Bad Sign Number Two: he had no socks left in his drawer.

On his way to breakfast, he had realised that he hadn't put his lemon drops in his pocket, and had returned to his office for them. Unfortunately, he didn't have any left.

That was Bad Sign Number Three.

Of course, as he was Albus Dumbledore, he ignored the Bad Signs. And so, soaked up to his knees, sockless and lemon dropless, he stepped into the Great Hall.

In the Great Hall, there was chaos.

This is a natural reaction to having the inside of a large castle full of teenagers doused with an evil white liquid – well, evil according to some, in particular the lactose intolerant. Many others were also converging upon the stance that milk is Bad.

Ignoring the chaos, Albus sat down at his customary place at the Staff Table and examined the choices for breakfast. There were two types of cereal, some soggy toast, and what may have once been cheese but was now a mutant creature intent upon Plate Domination.

Albus served himself a bowl of cornflakes, doused them in milk, covered them in an inch of sugar and inspected his choices in beverages, hoping for some pumpkin juice to start the day.

There was only milk.

Everyone else in the Great Hall, after experiencing the rest of Albus's morning, would have considered this Bad Sign Number Four.

The esteemed and eccentric Headmaster of Hogwarts, however, did not take these Signs into account and happily devoured his breakfast.

* * *

Unlike her colleague, Minerva McGonagall did not ignore the milky signs that something was substantially wrong in the school.

She had, as had everyone else in the castle, awoken to find herself very wet.

There had been no need for any further signs to get her attention, but she had experienced them anyway.

Her clothes had all been saturated, the hallways were flooded, and there were only a few very milky options for breakfast.

But it wasn't until she had finished her cornflakes, sipped her milk and was watching the evolving cheese with morbid interest that she was made aware that there was more than just an abundance of milk and a shortage of edible food going on.

The sound of someone nervously clearing their throat pried her attention from the fermented cheese and she looked up to find the majority of her Gryffindor sixth years standing across from her, headed by an embarrassed looking Hermione Granger.

She raised an eyebrow, taking note of the evident absence of one Harry Potter, which was, she was certain, a Very Bad Sign. Things always took a turn for the worse when Harry Potter was missing, whether the boy was simply in another part of the castle where he wasn't supposed to be (and, Minerva supposed, probably drowned in milk) or if Voldemort had kidnapped him.

"What can I do for you this morning, Miss Granger?" she asked, realising that Hermione wasn't going to start speaking.

"Um, well, it's like this, Professor," the girl started hesitantly, glancing worriedly back at each of her housemates. "You see, this morning Lavender, Parvati and I were in the Common Room when Neville and Harry came down to join us."

"They were trying to find out if it were just our dorm that had been Milked or not," Dean suppled. "Everything would have been fine, but…"

"Let me guess," Minerva commented dryly. "Mr Potter has vanished."

"Quite literally," Parvati said in confirmation. "One minute he was complaining about the morning, the next…"

"The next," Lavender finished. "He was surrounded by this cloud of black fog or something, and when it cleared he was gone."

Minerva looked from one nervous student to the other, until her eyes fell upon Neville Longbottom.

Now normally, she was certain, the boy would probably be hiding behind all his friends, trying to escape her notice and looking extremely guilty for simply being in the same room that Harry had disappeared from.

However, this time, while admittedly he was still behind the others, he did not seem to be hiding. No, in fact it seemed as though Neville was ignoring the conversation entirely in favour of…something else.

She had been told many, many times over the years that curiosity had killed the cat. Nevertheless, she ignored the advice every single time and generally emerged with all the normal vital signs, although she had ended up with a catnip addiction that one time…

"Mr Longbottom?" she called. The boy turned, slightly surprised and she continued. "Is there anything that you would like to add?"

Neville considered her question for what seemed like a minute, but was really only fifty-eight seconds, before he spoke. "Actually, Professor, I was wondering whether the sudden soddenness of the castle might have anything to do with Harry's rather random disappearance."

Minerva blinked at the abundance of alliteration in Neville's sentence before considering his actual words. "I'm afraid I have no idea, Mr Longbottom. The events as they have been described don't really mesh with this flood of milk, and it is entirely possible that the two events are merely coincidental. However, I have worked in this school for a great many years. As such I no longer truly believe in coincidence."

"Perhaps this is a distraction in the hope of people not noticing that Harry's gone," Hermione suggested.

Ron paled. "Do you think it could be You-Know-Who?"

Seamus frowned and shook his head. "Think about it, Ron. It's not really Voldie's style, is it?"

A very wet, very annoyed Severus Snape arrived just in time to hear Seamus's comment. "Indeed it is not, Finnigan, as the Dark Lord is lactose intolerant. He wouldn't even wish milk upon his greatest enemies…most of whom _do_ reside in this school."

"Do you have any ideas on who could be behind this, Severus?" Minerva asked him hopefully.

The man just sighed, dropped into the chair beside her and shrugged. "All I know is that the Dark Lord had nothing to do with the milk, nor the Potter-napping."

"Do you think we should take this to the Headmaster, Professors?" Parvati asked worriedly, looking from one to the other.

Minerva and Severus exchanged a glance, before looking down the table to where Dumbledore was still enjoying his breakfast.

"No, Miss Patil," Severus replied finally. "I don't believe that taking this to the Headmaster would be a very prudent idea at all."

"Professor Snape is right," commented (of all people) Seamus. "We should deal with this ourselves. We need to discover the mystery behind this milk."

"And behind Harry's vanishing act," Ron added.

"Very well," Severus sighed. "Granger, Finnigan, Patil, Thomas. You have Potions first this morning. We can discuss this further then."

"And Ron, Neville and I have Transfiguration," Lavender said. "Lucky, I suppose. We'll talk with you, Professor McGonagall, and then we can all compare notes at lunch."

"In that case," Hermione said sternly. "We should all get to class. Not to insult the house elves, but breakfast really was disappointing this morning."

* * *

Oh, this is fun…really, really fun.

Shakespeares Whore – Thanks. I do like to write randomly. All questions have the vague possibility of being answered sometime in the future of this fic…

LoonyLoopyLisa – Thanks. And yes, milk, ew. I don't like the stuff…

Kaaera – Somewhat disturbing, yes. I don't even want to imagine it…oh wait, I did. Well, I don't know why you were thinking about it, but you got me thinking about the answer. I think it's just that the milk permeated every available space, even in drawers. And no, Tom is _definitely_ not Voldemort.

DeppDRACOmaniac – Thanks!

DoD – Thank you! Well, the story is headed into the great unknown, places of Death, rubber baseball bats, certifiably insane vampires, more milk, evolving cheese, and more randomness. Also, I do hope you keep reviewing; it's always fun to read and reply to them!

ISC – Hopefully curious enough to keep reading…?

Luna Imbrium – Thank you!

Silver Sparklze – Then you shall find out.

TheSniggleRulz – That's a good question, where _did_ the milk come from…hm…I'll have to look into that! Yep, milk is very evil, I agree. Well, your English seems to make sense to me…

Thanks again guys, and I hope you'll review again. Next chapter involves Harry and Tom…

Please review.

S. Wolf


	3. Something Strange is Going On

_**Death's Manager**_

_Courtesy of SilverWolf7007_

_**Chapter Three – I Get The Feeling Something Strange Is Going On Around Here…**_

**_Or, Fun In Death's Office_**

As the son of Death's Manager and then as Death's Manager, Tom had experienced some extremely odd situations, so he should probably have been used to such things happening.

Despite this, he was still completely and utterly stunned at the sudden appearance of a saturated pyjama-clad teenager in his office.

Harry, on the other hand, seemed to take it in his stride. "Er, hello," he began. "What the hell just happened?"

Tom had to blink a few times to make certain that he was not imagining things before he could reply. "Uh, I haven't a single iota of what might possibly be an idea."

Sighing, Harry dropped onto the floor and began trying to wring the milk out of his pyjama legs. "I should have guessed that. Anyway, who are you, and where am I? I assume you do know that?"

"Yes, I do. My name is Tom, and I'm Death's Manager. You're in my office."

Harry slowly let go of his pyjamas and looked up at Tom, a somewhat suspicious expression on his face. "You're Death's what?"

"Manager," Tom replied helpfully. "I do most of the paperwork around here…Death just does the field work."

"Geez, that must be boring," Harry said frankly. He stood quickly. "Well, I hate to suddenly appear in a cloud of black fog and run, but I really need to get back to my school before people start killing one another – we're having a slight crisis, you see." He gestured to the state of his attire. "I don't normally wander around in milk-soaked clothing, you know."

Tom couldn't help but laugh. "I wouldn't have thought so. I'm guessing you'd like a hand in returning from whence you came?"

Harry grinned. "That'd be great, if you could."

"All right then. What school do you attend, and where is it?"

"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and its…somewhere in Scotland, I believe."

"Ah."

"Let me guess," Harry said with a wry smile. "Because of some magical interference, or the Apparition wards, or something, you can't actually help me out."

Tom shrugged and gave him a sympathetic grin. "That's about the size of it, I'm afraid. You're pretty much stuck here until…well, until we work out a way for you to get back without my help."

"Figures."

"Hey, it wont be all that bad," Tom told him optimistically.

"No?"

"'Course not! You can help me do a couple of things. Firstly, this place really needs livening up."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Tom…you work for Death. What did you expect?"

Rolling his eyes, Tom stood up. "You'll see. If nothing else, I need to play a few pranks…especially on my Fairy Godfather."

"Fairy Godfather?"

"Oh yes. Long story. Maybe I'll tell you it one day."

"Okay, I think I can manage that. If nothing else, because my own Godfather was quite the prankster, along with my dad."

"Was?"

"Uh, yeah. He died almost a year ago."

"Oh yeah…I remember that. And that reminds me of the other thing I need your help with."

"And what's that?"

"Well," Tom began. "I keep folders on people. The filing cabinet on the left is for the currently living, and the one on the right is for those who have passed on. The one in the middle is for cases such as ghosts, vampires…you get the picture. My dad, who was Death's Manager before me, was…" Tom trailed off.

"Was what?"

"Pretty damn hopeless at his job, actually. I've only just finished straightening out all of his messes, where he's screwed up the filing. However, there is one folder, one case, one person, who still confounds me."

Showing that he was not as stupid as Severus Snape and Voldemort would like to believe, Harry nodded. "That'd be me, right?"

Tom looked surprised as he sat back in his seat. "Yeah. Damn, you're good, kid."

"Why thank you," Harry replied with a smirk. "But I don't see how I can help you work out what's going on with my life…especially as, from what I've guessed, you want to know why it hasn't ended."

"Well, even if we do work out…whatever it is that's keeping you alive, there's no reason why it can't keep on doing so."

Harry shrugged. "All right then, I'll see what I can do. But I'd prefer to do the pranking part first."

Tom grinned. "Funnily enough, so would I. But we can't get on with that until tomorrow…the office will be empty of everyone but myself, and now you, for the rest of the day."

"Hm. So, what shall we do?"

"We-ell…" Tom began in a mischievous tone. "I do have the power to bring anyone in the history of any of these filing cabinets here temporarily."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Even the dead?"

"Of course. This place, building, whatever, exists outside the boundaries of time and space. Technically, nothing here is dead, and nothing here is alive. We also have the option of visiting any place in the past, should we wish to."

"I'm suddenly having the urge to take a while finding a way home," Harry said, a somewhat evil grin spreading across his face.

"Harry," Tom began in a warning tone. "You can't do or say anything, or be anywhere, that would change the course of history. I know there are people you'd like to, well, dispose of early, but – "

"Geez, no one ever has any faith in me," Harry interrupted. "I wasn't even planning on that. I mean, you're not wrong, there are many, many things I'd like to change, but I know perfectly well that I can't."

Tom looked confused. "Then what were you thinking about when you got that evil grin and professed your wish to stay?"

The evil grin reappeared. "Several reasons. One, being a simple interest in history…two, being a wish to meet my parents, and see my godfather again, and maybe speak to Cedric…and three…" The grin transformed into a smirk. "Well, I know a couple of vampires I'd like to see again, and I daresay they'd have a few ideas on how to liven this place up."

"Really?" Tom said hopefully.

"Sure. Although," Harry amended with a frown. "Sylvan might have the urge to redecorate."

Tom looked at him. "What makes you think that?"

"Well, he recently professed the wish to repaint the White House…as it's so boring. And he redecorated his own home, inside and out, in various shades of pink and orange." Harry winced. "James, I believe, nearly killed him – again."

Instead of looking worried, as Harry had expected, Tom just grinned. "Well, I think we should invite him around as soon as possible. Kyra and Death will simply hate whatever he does to the place…I do have one condition, though."

"And what would that be?"

"No matter who or what we bring here, there is a total ban on rubber baseball bats."

Harry, who had resumed wringing out his pyjamas, looked up and raised an eyebrow. "Rubber baseball bats? Why on earth would you ban those?"

Tom looked somewhat embarrassed. "You see, one of the perks of being Death's Manager is that I'm impervious to pretty much any way of killing humans. The downside…well, the only thing that can kill the Manager of Death, and therefore me, is a rubber baseball bat."

* * *

The fun just keeps on increasing…

ISC – Oh good. Thanks heaps, and (shudders) ew, I didn't even think of the milk going bad…

Sabine Strohem-Moss – Thanks, glad you like it!

Shakespeares Whore – Ta, and don't worry, you're not the only one in doubt about my sanity. Hope you liked the chapter.

maleficus-lupus – Strange even for me, huh? I quite agree. And yes, Terry Pratchett is one of my favourite authors – I make a point to read at least part of one of his books a week. That's where I kind of got the idea of putting Death into something from, and it…stemmed from there.

LoonyLoopyLisa – Oh, I'm sure they'll find stuff out at some point…maybe.

Sapphire Dragons – Okay, update it is.

Kaaera – Oh geez, I didn't think of that! Okay, I'm going to go whole milk. Don't ask me why, just cos. (Gasps) You don't really like chocolate? Ah well, I have a friend who feels the same, so I'm quite over the betrayed feeling…hee hee. Well, the whole thing is very random, but no, Tom is all mine. They're all mine! Ahem, well, not Harry and his lot, but…And I agree, you should definitely read the Discworld books. And also Good Omens, which Pratchett wrote with Neil Gaiman. It's brilliant.

NephyRiddle – Why thank you, disturbing, fun! Milk's evil just because I can't stand the taste of it (I think it might be left over from not being able to have it as a baby). And ew, off milk. Poor thing.

Bobboky – Meh, I'm not milk's biggest fan.

ReginaLucifer – (snicker) I thought the think with Neville might have come off a bit silly, but as that's the purpose of the fic…

DeppDRACOmaniac – Nope, never seen Anchorman. And poor Voldie…although that would be an effective way of getting rid of him. Oooh, a way to get rid of the Twinkle…didn't think of that…yes, it might just work. _Poor_ Dumbles…(snort)

mlovektowsing – I'm good at strange. Glad you're going to stick with it!

Semma – Yes, very weird taste. Nice to find someone who agrees with me. Glad you like my randomness. 'Tis my forte…along with evil, as I've been told.

Thought I'd mention that Tom, Death, Kyra, Luke, the Fairy Godfather, the Tooth Fairy and the events referred to (such as the rubber baseball bat) are all very, very mine. I wrote a play for English last year. That's what it was about. The script is on my FictionPress account (under Herring Stole My Pen), and if anyone's interested in reading it, go ahead.

In the next chapter, we find out what the morning was like in the Slytherin Common Rooms.

Please review!

S. Wolf


	4. Evolving Cheese

_**Death's Manager**_

_Courtesy of SilverWolf7007_

_**Chapter Four – Evolving Cheese**_

_**Or, The Achievement Of Plate Domination And An Aspiration To Larger Things**_

The Great Hall had emptied quickly, not because the students were so eager to get to their lessons, but simply because the choices for breakfast had been so dismal.

Hermione privately hoped that this was a sign of the House Elves beginning to resent their enslavement, but somehow even she doubted that this was the case.

As was usual of a morning, the food was left on the tables until halfway through the first lesson, just in case a student was running late, or in fact had a free period and had slept in, and wished to have something to eat even after breakfast was over. This option was mostly for the students who were unaware of the whereabouts and method of entering the Hogwarts kitchens.

On most mornings, this was a good idea. On the morning in question, however, it would probably have been better for everyone had the House Elves removed the breakfast dishes immediately after the Great Hall emptied.

Had this particular event happened on any other morning, Minerva McGonagall probably would have realised exactly what she had been watching whist awaiting the end of breakfast.

In fact, had it been any other morning, the House Elves wouldn't have been so distracted that they allowed such an abomination onto any of the tables, let alone that of the staff.

Unfortunately, this wasn't any other morning, and the House Elves had been incredibly distracted.

As such, upon the staff table was a plate.

On this plate, there was some incredibly mouldy cheese that was ever so slowly oozing its way across every inch of the plate and onto the table.

This mutation of gouda was not only achieving Plate Domination and striving for greater things, but was also beginning to spawn a civilisation all of its own…

The list of problems at Hogwarts was growing with every passing moment.

* * *

Somehow, in all the confusion, even Severus failed to notice that there had been very few Slytherins in the Great Hall that morning.

Had anyone taken the time to think about it, they might have reached the conclusion that, being at the bottom of the castle, the Slytherin dorms had been completely flooded and they had all drowned.

This was, thankfully, not the case.

Others may have suspected that the Slytherins were behind whatever was happening that morning. While this was a slightly more radical theory than their drowning, it was also untrue.

In fact, the Slytherins had merely chosen to stay in their Common Room for the morning.

Really.

Draco was staring at the thigh-depth lake of milk that had once been their Common Room with an expression of pure revulsion.

It was, unfortunately, an incredibly accurate measurement of depth - because Draco was standing in it.

For poor Pansy, who was nearly an entire foot shorter than her best friend, it was up to her waist, and she was glaring at him from the door to the Common Room, waiting for him to join her so they could head to Potions. The rest of their classmates were with her.

"Draco, stop being such a bloody wanker and get over here!" Blaise demanded. He was holding his bag above the milk, trying to keep it dry…well, damp, at least.

Sighing and sending his roommate a nasty glare, Draco waded across the room and joined them. "All right, I don't like it, but we've got to go. Too bad we missed breakfast."

"Yes, why was that?" asked Theodore, who had been asleep during the whole debacle.

Pansy rolled her eyes. "Well, while you were snoring your head off -"

"I do not snore!" he protested loudly. He received several sceptical mutters from the girls, and four very undignified snorts from his roommates.

Ignoring this, Pansy continued with her explanation. "Well, Crabbe and Goyle were trying to kill one another, Blaise was stuck under his bed, Draco was stuck _in _his bed, several of the younger years were too scared to leave their dorms, a few of them actually _couldn't _leave their dorms, and Millie was as asleep as you were. And as such, we were all sorting out those messes, and breakfast time passed us by."

"Oh."

"Oh indeed," Draco muttered. "Come on, let's get to Potions."

They left, a flood of milk heading out the door before they did.

* * *

Hermione, Seamus, Dean and Parvati had followed Severus down to the dungeons to attend Potions and to try and work out exactly what was going on. However, all five of them had, in their distraction, managed to somehow forget that Gryffindor had this particular class with the Slytherins.

This would not normally be a cause for so much distress – or, if it was, it was nowhere near the same intensity.

For some reason, both the Gryffindor students and Severus alike were under the impression that the Slytherin students would do nothing but hinder the hunt for causes and Harry.

Crabbe and Goyle had dropped out of Potions and had separated from their friends to join Minerva, Ron, Neville and Lavender in Transfiguration.

Draco, Pansy, Theodore, Blaise and Millicent, however, had hurried down to the dungeon classroom and managed to beat everyone else. Ignoring the ankle-depth milk as best they could, they set up their cauldrons.

It wasn't long before the Gryffindors arrived, Severus on their heels. The students quickly took their seats and the professor headed to the front of the room.

Once there, he began pulling books from his drawers and cupboards, piling them on his desk.

Suddenly, he stopped short and stared in surprise at the Slytherin students.

"Can I take a wild guess and surmise that we're studying causes of sudden downpours of milk today?" Blaise asked innocently.

"Funnily enough, yes," Severus replied in a dry tone. "Also, we're trying to figure out what happened to our ever so precious Gryffindor Golden Boy."

"Something happened to Potter?" Theodore asked, voice almost hopeful.

Pansy poked him in the back of the head as Hermione replied. "Yes, he vanished. Right in front of our eyes, in fact. We think there's a possibility that the two events are connected."

"I wouldn't doubt it," Draco muttered.

"Have we ruled out the Dark Lord as a cause?" Millicent queried.

Allowing the Gryffindors to field the inquisitive Slytherins, Severus returned to emptying his desk and cupboard of every book that might _possibly_ have a slight relevance.

Seamus nodded. "Oh yeah. You know, I have a theory."

"Let's hear it, then,' Dean prompted.

"I reckon a bunch of really bored, really powerful beings drenched us and nicked off with Harry just for something to do."

"Odd as it may sound, coming from me," Draco began. "But I actually agree. At least, I wouldn't completely discount it."

Severus sighed, straightened up with the last armful of books, and surveyed the nine students. It was strange, the way they were completely ignoring House rivalry.

Then again, he thought wryly as he began passing out the books, there really _wasn't_ anything like the sudden appearance of a large quantity of milk to bring people together in order to work out a solution.

And if there _was_, then Severus _really_ didn't want to know about it.

* * *

Wow, I am having _so_ much fun writing this…

Semma – Thanks heaps!

LoonyLoopyLisa – Oh yes, it shall be very chaotic. And fun. Though it probably wont be for a few chapters yet.

ISC – Oh (shudders) EW. I don't blame you, that's got to be an awful smell. And hee hee, yes, well, the rubber baseball bats…heh…I have no explanation. It was…random.

Sabine Strohem-Moss – Thanks, and neither can I….

maleficus-lupus – Hee hee, glad you like. And no, it's only a sequel to the play, and can probably be read without it but enjoyed better with it…don't mind me, I just want people to read the play, lol.

cRazy-GIrl-3000 – (snicker) Glad to see you enjoying yourself…

ReginaLucifer – Tom's glad you like him, and Sylvan's looking forward to redecorating too. Oh, and the pranks shall be fun…

Kurai Shinigami – Heh, thanks. And yep, very amusing, so keep it up I shall. I'm kinda curious as to how many chapters I can keep people covered in milk for…

Pearl-Magicgirl – Glad you like the story…and the rubber baseball bats.

DeppDRACOmaniac – Well, the killing of the Twinkle might make Dumbles sad for a while, but I doubt it'd kill him… Hm, must remember to mention the warming of milk next time we visit with this lot. And Draco, I'm sure, would have loved to have had his broom in this chapter…

duj – Thank ye.

mlovektowsing – Good to know! Glad you're enjoying.

Ceejaytee – Ick, it would be sticky eventually, wouldn't it…glad you like the bizarreness, I'm finding it fun. As for Dumbledore's socks, well, I think there might be forces at work making them missing rather than him just running out…

Well, that was fun. In the next chapter, Harry has a conversation with his first dead contact, and gives out the shock of that person and Tom's lives. Or unlives, in one case.

Please review!

S. Wolf


	5. Anyone for a Rebellion?

_**Death's Manager**_

_Courtesy of SilverWolf7007_

_**Chapter Five – Anyone for a Rebellion?**_

_**Or, The Chapter in Which There is a Dead Person**_

After spending twenty minutes arguing about the logistics of being killed by a rubber baseball bat, Harry and Tom had come to only one possible conclusion:

That there was no logical reason, and that whoever or whatever had invented that clause in the Death's Manager contract was either drunk, stoned, insane or so very sly they had outfoxed themselves.

Harry was voting for the first reason, while Tom thought insanity was a far more likely cause.

Once that discussion was out of the way, they moved to the Filing Cabinet of the Dead, as Harry dubbed it, and began hunting for interesting files.

It wasn't long before they came across the first currently dead individual that interested Harry – and it was quite possibly the last person Tom was expecting Harry to want to talk to.

"Are you absolutely sure, Harry?" the Manager asked one last time.

Harry rolled his eyes impatiently. "Yes Tom, I am _very _sure. Besides, who would actually miss a chance to speak with Salazar Slytherin?"

"Uh, let me see, anyone Sorted into any house _but_ Slytherin?"

"Shut up, Tom."

"Oh, so you _don't _want to talk with Salazar, then?"

Harry glared.

Chuckling, Tom pulled the file towards himself and opened it to the very back.

"Are you going to tell me what you're doing, or do I have to sit here and be bored while I wait for you to finish?"

Tom didn't bother to answer. "In the back of each folder is one last section, detailing which part of which afterlife a person has ended up in. It's quite useful to know when you're attempting to pull them out."

"Is it something you _need_ to know?"

Frowning thoughtfully, Tom looked up at him. "Actually, now I think about it, it is. If I didn't know where they were, I wouldn't be able to summon them properly. All sorts of things could happen…we could be drowned in coffee."

"Oh geez. In that case, be _very _sure that you know where they are…I've have enough being doused in beverages for one lifetime."

Tom snorted. "I can only imagine…thankfully. You might want to be thankful that you're here now."

"Other than the obvious reasons of how much fun I plan to have, was there any reason you felt the need to state that?"

"Oh yes. Think about it. Hogwarts is full of milk."

Harry blinked slowly. "Yes," he drawled. "I can honestly say I noticed that."

"And what happens to milk when you leave it out for too long?" Tom prompted, a hint of impatience in his voice at Harry's comment.

As he came to the obvious realisation, Harry shuddered in disgust. "Oh gross, you mean if I was still there I'd be covered in _off_ milk!"

"It is a logical conclusion," Tom pointed out.

Harry snorted. "Logic has no place in my reality."

"I'm not surprised."

While Harry was snickering, Tom turned back to Salazar's file, a blue ballpoint pen in hand.

"What are you writing?" Harry inquired.

"A summons," Tom told him. "It's a far simpler process than one would expect, really. I just write in when, where and why I want Salazar to show up here, and he does so at the appointed time."

Harry grinned brightly. "Cool."

"It kinda is, huh? So, when do you want our first guest to show up?"

"Soon. Unless you have something else we could do…?"

"All right, I'll give him a few minutes."

Once Tom had finished writing, he placed the pen on his desk and looked up at Harry. "You know, it strikes me as interesting."

"What does, exactly?" Harry asked, somewhat suspicious.

"You're about to meet Salazar Slytherin, founder of Hogwarts, and you're wearing pyjamas that are still damp with milk."

There was utter silence in the office for a total of one minute and twenty-six seconds.

"Oh _crap_," Harry yelped.

Tom snickered as Harry scrambled to his feet and began trying (in vain) to rid his pyjamas of any and all remaining traces of milk.

While Harry was frantically ringing out his clothing, Salazar Slytherin appeared in the office with an odd combination of softly ringing bells and a sharp snapping.

This caught Harry's attention, and he abandoned all hope of cleaning off his attire and looked up to face the dead wizard…who was covered in a thin layer of red and gold glitter.

Harry, who had recently had the same thing happen to him in opposing colours, winced in sympathy. "A Gryffindor on a revenge kick?"

Salazar looked over at him in surprise before nodding. "Godric, in fact. And you are?"

"Oh!" Harry blushed. "I'm Harry Potter. Pleased to meet you."

"Of course," the man murmured, gaining a snort from Tom and a pair of rolled eyes from the quickly recovering Harry. "I don't suppose either of you want to tell me what I'm doing here? Godric and I were having a perfectly civil prank war when I was called away."

"That's possible?" asked a sceptical Harry. "I've never heard of a _perfectly_ civil prank war…perhaps a moderately civil one, though."

"Well, if you want to be _completely _accurate, it was closer to moderately civil than perfectly."

Tom cleared his throat, hiding his amusement at the two when they turned to face him. "You're here, Salazar, because Harry over there wanted to meet you."

Salazar turned and looked at Harry in a new light. "Are you a Slytherin student at Hogwarts?"

"Uh, almost. I was _nearly_ put in Slytherin, but at the last moment the Hat changed its mind and picked…uh…" Harry mumbled the last word so quietly that Salazar couldn't hear it.

"I'm sorry?" the man asked politely. "I didn't quite catch that, although I'd have assumed Ravenclaw."

Harry shook his head mutely. "No, I'm, uh, a Gryffindor."

Tom was fairly sure that, were he not too dignified to do so, the Founder of Slytherin House would have fainted. Or swore.

"Then why on earth did you choose to meet me over Godric?"

"Morbid curiosity?"

Salazar replied with a glare.

"Oh all right, if you insist. Well, I was just wondering, did you really leave a basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets for an heir of yours to kill off Muggle-born students with?"

"Of course not!" Salazar exclaimed, highly offended. "Why in Merlin's name would you say that?"

"Because the last known descendent of Salazar Slytherin did so about fifty years ago."

Salazar seemed to take several minutes to think about this. "Well, that's not good," he responded finally.

"Ya think?" Harry asked in a sarcastic tone.

The older man ignored his comment. "That Chamber wasn't supposed to have a basilisk…who put a bloody basilisk in my bloody Chamber?"

"Oh dear," Tom murmured. In a louder voice he changed the subject. "So Harry, was this the only reason you wanted to meet Salazar?"

Harry, who was not as dense as some of his teachers (ie Snape) made out, easily caught on to Tom trying to change the subject away from very large snakes with killer eyes. "Actually, no. I was hoping you'd help me out with a little project."

Intrigued, Salazar allowed himself to be distracted from what could have been an hour long rant and turned to the Gryffindor. "And what kind of project is this?"

"Well," Harry began, an evil smirk beginning to appear on his face and worry Tom. "I need a very, very detailed and incredibly accurate map of Hogwarts, including all the secret passages, sealed rooms and private quarters of teachers past and present – you and your fellow founders included."

Both Tom and Salazar found themselves staring at the teen in shock.

The Manager of Death was the first to recover sufficiently enough to speak. "And what do you need such a map for?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "For one, to make sure there's no way Voldiekins can get into the castle. Two, so I can get everywhere around the place, even into places that Dumbles can't, in order to play pranks and to train myself and my friends in defences and some curses that might be considered a little dark."

Having a feeling that there was more, Salazar prompted him in a dazed tone of dread. "And three?"

"Three?" Harry said with a positively devious smirk. "Why, number three is so that I can take over the school with more ease. The current administrative leader just isn't performing adequately at his job." Seeing the dawning horror on both faces, Harry consolidated it with one last comment. "I want to remove Dumbledore."

* * *

Ah yes, the wonderful Plot. Harry has a Plot; therefore the story suddenly has a Plot.

Kelsey—aka Howl – Yeah I love the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, but I don't think I wrote like Douglass Adams! But I'm flattered you think so. Anyway, glad you're enjoying it, and thanks!

ReginaLucifer – Well they are right down the bottom. And no, I don't think I'd bother getting up either. And I reckon you're right, people will get a bit phobic of milk.

Kurai Shinigami – Yeah, poor Pans. Poor short people. Poor me…as one of the aforementioned short people.

ISC – Yay! Well I'm guessing it smells better now than it did, breathing inability aside ;-). And thanks. Also, your review made me giggle…thankfully not in class, though!

Sabine Strohem-Moss – Hee hee, thanks heaps!

marajade179 – Wow, thanks! And as for your suggestion, you'll see it in the next chapter! It was a great idea and fit right in!

mlovektowsing – The superhero voice is right, it's a very good thing. Though if they're still getting along once the crisis is over, chaos may ensue.

LoonyLoopyLisa – (shudders) It would, wouldn't it? Aw man. Glad you like it!

Thanks again guys, as always you brightened up my day(s).

Next chapter is an interlude, in which we discover exactly who is behind this and the beginnings of why, as well as gain a glimpse at the Daily Prophet.

Please review!

S. Wolf


	6. Interlude One

_**Death's Manager**_

_Courtesy of SilverWolf7007_

_**Chapter Six – Interlude One**_

_**Or, I Think We Did Something Wrong…**_

Over one thousand years ago, two witches and two wizards got together and built a castle, which they turned into a school.

In order to run a school, you need two very important things: students and teachers.

Of course, the founders of Hogwarts had an abundance of students – and unfortunately, not very many teachers.

In fact, at first they only had themselves.

However, Salazar, in his infinite wisdom, came up with an idea.

The four of them knew two people who would be more than willing to teach, so they sent an owl.

Mere days later, Jenissa and James arrived.

Helga and Rowena had reservations about allowing the younger of the two vampires to teach. Not, of course, because they feared that James might attack the students.

Well, not in the conventional fashion. But James was more suited to pranking than professorship. But Godric and Salazar were (for once) in total agreement.

Surprisingly, James was a wonderful teacher, as was Jenissa.

Before they died, the Founders extracted a promise from the two vampires, who were staying on to teach and would do so for several more decades.

Both Jenissa and James swore that they and their line would always watch over the school, and to make sure it was always under suitable leadership. They swore to protect the students within. They swore to never allow life at Hogwarts to become boring.

And, in accordance with the only request Helga made of them, they swore to stir things up every once in a while and kidnap one student in particular and deposit him in the office of Death's Manager.

Helga was a Seer, of course.

* * *

Far away from where the Gryffindors and Slytherins were researching, and not quite as far yet still not close to where Harry was sending Tom and Salazar into shock, there was a place.

This place was somewhat unspecified, as it had never been officially described in any way.

All that was known about it was that it was (usually) decorated in black, dark red and silver. Although, it had spent a small interval in pale pink, cream and mauve with floral decorations, until the owner of this place had the redecorator smacked around the head. It had also spent a small amount of time as a holiday resort of the damned.

For short, this place was called The Void.

Its full name was The Black Void of Imminent Doom.

Within this Void were the causers of most current troubles. However, they claimed absolutely no responsibility for the evolving cheese. That, they claimed, was someone else cashing in on their causing of trouble.

They had thought they had full control over the situation. They thought nothing could go wrong.

They were, of course, so very wrong it was almost funny.

Almost.

The Black Void of Imminent Doom had accidentally followed the example of Hogwarts by becoming flooded with milk – and that was the least of their problems.

The Originator of the Idea was staring into a one-way mirror with a worried expression. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

"No, really?" said a second culprit sarcastically from his place around the Originator's wrist. "And here was me thinking that you _planned_ for him to want to take over Hogwarts!"

She glared down at him. "He never said he wanted to take over! With any luck, he'll just get rid of Dumbles and stick Minerva in the Headmaster's office – well, Head_mistress_, if I'm right."

"Oh, I do hope so," her partner-in-crime muttered. "Because if you're wrong, and Harry takes over Hogwarts…well geez, just think! It would be like letting Fred and George become Ministers of Magic!"

"Hm, that's not a bad idea…"

"_Jenissa_!" he shrieked. "Don't you _dare_!"

The red haired vampire snickered. "Don't worry, Herring, I wouldn't. At least, its no more likely than me putting Sylvan and James in an administrative position."

She felt the small silver snake shudder against her skin. "Man, don't even suggest things like that! You'll give me nightmares for the rest of my natural life! And that's going to be several thousand years!"

Jenissa just smiled before turning back to the mirror, watching as Harry spoke with Salazar and Tom.

It wasn't long before she sensed two other vampires approaching her from behind, and she turned with a small smile. "Hello Lyssa, Tali. I was worried for a moment that you two were James and Sylvan."

The other two women raised their eyebrows at each other, and the taller laughed softly. "Oh, there's no fear of that, Nissa."

The other woman was looking around the room. "Uh, Niss?"

"Yes, Talia?"

"Not to pry into your private life or anything, but…why on earth is The Void flooded with milk?"

Jenissa sighed. "I'm blaming that one on Bast and Damon."

Alyson snorted. "Why am I not surprised? Still, what did they do?"

"They screwed up when they were supposed to be flooding Hogwarts," the older vampire explained.

Talia and Alyson exchanged another glance before they perched side by side on Jenissa's desk near the enchanted mirror, and joined her watching of the unfolding events.

* * *

Meanwhile, the two vampires in question were currently occupying a deserted classroom in Hogwarts.

Damon, black haired and silver eyed, was entertaining them both by writing random and occasionally rude comments on the blackboard.

Sitting on one of the desks, the brunette Sebastian watched with mild amusement as he tried to think up an explanation to give to Jenissa when she asked how the Void had become just as milky as Hogwarts.

Before he got very far, the two of them were interrupted by their contact inside the school, as well as the flood of milk she brought with her.

"Hey!" Damon yelped as the rush of lukewarm liquid hit the back of his legs. He spun around and glared at the girl. "We managed to keep the milk _out_ of this one, you know!"

She simply glared at him before hopping up onto the teacher's desk across from Bast. "Where's Harry?" she asked evenly, looking into his dark blue eyes.

He gave her a nervous smile. "Look, I don't know, exactly. The part about taking Harry somewhere was all Jenissa's idea. And we don't know what she did with him."

"We do know that he's perfectly safe, wherever he is," Damon added in a reassuring tone. "You know Harry far better than we do. I'm sure he's making the most of it, whatever 'it' is. Aren't you?"

The red haired girl sighed in surrender. "I guess so. But if he gets hurt, I'm not going to be the only one who gets infinitely pissed off."

Both men winced. "Oh, we know."

Ginny Weasley smirked. "No, I don't think you do."

* * *

Back in the Great Hall, things were getting desperate. The entire Staff Table had been overtaken by the civilisation of evolving cheese, and it was currently entering into negotiations with the milk for free passage to the House Tables, beginning with Hufflepuff.

Luckily for the tables, the House Elves chose that moment to bring the remaining dishes and food back down to the kitchen.

This was not so lucky for the currently overworked House Elves, who were working their ears off trying to get the castle back to her milkless former self. They were not, therefore, prepared to deal with a rebellion from part of breakfast.

Which was why they were overrun and had to flee the kitchen in search of help.

* * *

Since they had been bought out from the Ministry by a mysterious benefactor a year after Voldemort's return, the Daily Prophet had been running thrice daily editions. 

When they were putting the midday edition together, their editor, Matthew Turpin, had been at first surprised and then horrified at the two short articles that had been sent to them from within the walls of Hogwarts.

He had tried to contact someone in the school, but found that there was no way to either enter or speak with anyone inside. The only communications possible, as the article writer had mentioned, were outgoing owls from the castle.

Not knowing what else to do, and knowing that the writer of these articles had been given special privileges by the new owner of the Prophet to have her articles published immediately, Matthew submitted the articles into the midday edition and informed the Ministry about the sudden lockdown of Hogwarts.

Looking at the first printed copy of the Midday Prophet, Matthew silently wished every student and staff member in the school the best of luck.

They would undoubtedly need it.

* * *

**The Flooding of Hogwarts: How Did This Happen?**

_Reported by Ginevra Weasley_

Students and staff alike awoke to a very unexpected sight this morning at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

No one was woken during the actual event, but upon waking it became clear that something was wrong.

All rooms in the castle have been flooded with milk, the cause of which is unknown. Also unknown are any ways of dissipating this milk.

A dedicated group of students and professors have begun investigations into this anomaly, and have already ruled out any chance of You-Know-Who being involved.

This reporter vows to keep the outside world up to date on the events within the castle, as an automatic and irreversible lockdown has fallen into place. The only communications currently able to permeate it are outgoing owls.

* * *

**Boy-Who-Lived Missing!**

_Reported by Ginevra Weasley_

During the chaos that reigned in Hogwarts this morning, not many of the students or staff noticed that Harry Potter, sixth year Gryffindor student, appears to have vanished into thin air.

Sources do not confirm whether Mr Potter's disappearance is in any way connected with the inundation of milk this morning, though there is much speculation.

One student, Luna Lovegood, gave her opinion to this reporter.

"Oh, well, I suppose it's _theoretically _possible that Harry's disappearance is connected with the milk. But I don't think so. I mean, we all know that Harry doesn't like milk. He may just be hiding somewhere."

Several of the students looking into the appearance of the milk and indirectly the vanishing of Harry Potter were heard discussing the possibility of higher powers at work.

These and many other theories are flying fast around Hogwarts, while most owls no longer are.

In fact, the majority of Hogwarts' owls, barring those privately owned by students, have turned into large brightly coloured fish. This phenomenon has been attributed to being connected to, if not caused by, the milk downpour.

* * *

Well, that was random. Direct all questions regarding the fic to…me. Heh.

Machiavelli Jr – Wow. That is pretty random. But I do like randomness. And don't worry, what little point there is will be quite buried under pointlessness. That tends to happen with my writing a lot…

LoonyLoopyLisa – Hee hee, well, I have no idea…I'm sure someone knows who put it there. Might have to find that out…

ISC – Oh. Well that must be a relief. And no, I can honestly say I have never smelt spoilt milk pretending to be a French Whore. But I don't think I'd like to, either… Oh yes, Harry shall return chapter after next. And he shall Plot some more…

Kurai Shinigami – Heh, no I didn't really think anyone would be. Heck, _I _wasn't expecting it to be Salazar! Godric might, and if he does he'll need Rowena to smack him round the head every so often, and I'm sure Helga would follow…so yeah, there's a pretty good chance they will – but don't quote me on that.

Shakespeares Whore – Well, a tiny plot. Really, microscopic. And yes, you may play with Salazar, but have him back before ten, that's his bedtime.

DeppDRACOmaniac – Heh, don't worry 'bout it, and no, all the firsties made it out alive. Yep, and he's not happy about it. As for Dumbles, that just _might_ end the Twinkle…and we can't think that way! It must be able to be defeated! There has to be a way…

maleficus-lupus – Glad you think so! And as for slash…I don't know. It might, it might not. Even if there is, it'll be mild. But I really don't know.

mlovektowsing - Thank you!

Zeb – That is a very good question, one I realised I needed to think about. And my answer is… Well, the way I see it, Damon and Bast would have spelled it so no one gets hurt. The excess milk down the bottom probably moves back up to the top and starts all over again. So thanks for bringing it up, and I'm glad you like the fic.

ReginaLucifer – Heh, the Twinkle probably is in the story somewhere, and who knows what it'll do? It's very unpredictable. And yeah, Salazar is probably going to be jealous of Godric for getting Harry…Glad you liked, and, well….(innocent smile) Assume away. It was. I thought it was kinda tacky the first time, but since you liked it…(shrug) And I think I did it again in the next chapter…hm…

Love you all!

In the next chapter, we find out all about Ginny's involvement with Damon and Bast, as well as where the House Elves went.

Please review!

S. Wolf


	7. The House Elf Version of Voldie

_**Death's Manager**_

_Courtesy of SilverWolf7007_

_**Chapter Seven – The House Elf Version of Voldie**_

_**Or, Ginny's Backstory**_

So far, the search had been utterly fruitless, and after a quick firecall up to Minerva, she too professed little hope in finding a solution anytime soon.

As such, they had mostly given up.

Not, of course, that they weren't still trying. The problem was, they kept getting distracted.

It had all started, funnily enough, when Draco had fallen off his stool with a loud splash, drawing everyone's attention.

Safely perched on her desk, Pansy peered down at him with an arched eyebrow. "Something wrong, Draco dearest?"

Instead of his customary scowl and snarky reply, Draco just stared at her before he seemed to realise where he was.

"Damn!" He leaped out of the milk in an impressive display of acrobatics and scrambled onto his own desk, trying desperately to get the milk off him.

Severus, watching from atop his own desk, shook his head exasperatedly. "Draco, it'll never work."

The blond gave him a desperate look. "But I'm going to smell!" he wailed.

Blaise blinked slowly, eyeing his friend. "Draco, you already smell. What's new?"

Draco glared at everyone else in the room. "What happens to milk that you leave out for ages?" he asked of no one in particular, ignoring Blaise's question.

There was confused silence until Seamus's eyes widened in realisation. "It goes off," he answered in a weak voice, staring down into the white lake with renewed revulsion. "Oh my god. We're going to be covered in off milk."

* * *

As she snuck back into the History of Magic classroom, Ginny was yet again amazed at Binns' complete and utter ignorance at her antics.

She had spent the first half of the lesson writing out her articles for the Midday Prophet, interviewing Luna as she was the only student neither asleep nor note taking other than Ginny herself.

After that, she had gathered up her Gryffindor courage and stood. Not really surprisingly, Binns hadn't noticed, so she had left for the Owlery.

On her way back, she had noticed the way the milk seemed to be damming up at one door in particular, and had entered, finding Damon and Bast inside as she had suspected.

It had been a little over five months ago now, on Halloween, when she had first met the two vampires.

Having left the party in the Great Hall, she had accidentally wandered into a deserted classroom, hoping for either some peace and quiet or some first year Hufflepuff and/or Ravenclaws to torment.

Neither had been the case, but she had found two apparently grown men bickering over whether Superman would beat Batman in a fight.

Knowing that neither was supposed to be in the school, Ginny had demanded to know who they were and what their purpose was, an announcement of her presence that had caused Bast to fall off his chair in shock.

This, of course, led to Damon being unable to contain his laughter for about ten minutes and thirty seven seconds, most of which both Bast and Ginny had spent glaring at him.

Finally, Ginny had gained her explanation.

_**Cue Trippy Flashback, Complete with Glitter**_

Still snickering slightly, Damon sat on the nearest desk and gestured for Ginny to do the same. Once she had, he spoke. "I'm Damon, this is Bast. We're vampires, and we're here…well, we're casing the joint, I guess."

Bast raised an eyebrow. "We are not conducting a robbery, Damon."

The silver-eyed man sighed. "Yes, yes, I know that, Sebastian." He turned back to Ginny. "You see, we're helping to fulfil a prophecy spoken about one thousand years ago by Helga Hufflepuff."

Ginny gave him a sceptical look. "Uh huh. And I'm supposed to believe that?"

"Er, yeah?"

She groaned. "Honestly! Okay, I'll bite. What kind of prophecy? And exactly how are you helping to fulfil it?"

"Well, back in the good old days, Helga, along with the other Founders of this place, had two quite good friends and co-workers who were vampires, namely Jenissa and James," Damon began.

"Because we vamps live as long as we can stay alive for," Bast continued. "Helga and the rest asked them and their vampiric descendents to watch over the school and whatnot. Also, when Helga gave this prophecy, she asked them to carry it out."

Ginny was frowning thoughtfully. "Okay, that all makes sense. So what's the prophecy?"

Damon winced. "Ah, now that's the tricky part. We have to get Harry James Potter, Boy-Who-Lived, away from here and into the office of Tom, Manager for Death, in order for it all to come about."

"You'll never manage it," was her immediate reaction. "There's no way you can get anywhere near Harry, not with the way Dumbles has been having him watched lately."

Bast nodded. "Exactly. Which is why we're here, in order to create a distraction and plant the transporter, so Nissa can move Harry."

"All right." Ginny gave them both a bright grin. "How can I help?"

_**End Trippy Flashback and Glitter**_

After hashing out plans of various merits for an hour, Ginny had promised to meet them in that classroom once a day after dinner in order to work everything out.

Which was, of course, why she had ended up planting the device that allowed Jenissa to transport Harry from Hogwarts to Death's Office.

Many people, her brother and Hermione included, would have seen this as a betrayal of Harry's trust and friendship.

Ginny knew better.

After vanishing from the Dursley's mere days after returning there following his fifth year, Harry had turned up at the Burrow on the twenty eighth of August.

No one really knew where he had been or what he had been up to, but Ginny knew more than most, for which she was very grateful.

His attitude and position in the war had altered somewhat, and he was desperate to get out from under Dumbledore's thumb. She knew that, given the choice, he'd have jumped at the chance to leave and visit with the Manger of Death, so she had no qualms in making that decision for him.

Of course, Damon and Bast would have found a solution anyway, so there was no real reason why she couldn't help.

It wasn't only Harry who had changed, though she knew that a lot of the other changes were due to him.

One of his earliest acts had been anonymously buying out and controlling the Daily Prophet, and when he'd written and asked her, she had immediately accepted his offer to be their in-Hogwarts correspondent whenever the need arose.

She hadn't submitted many articles until now, and she knew there were likely to be many more before the crisis was through.

After all, she had incited a great deal of it.

* * *

Severus gave up on his reading about half an hour before lunch and eyed his class. Each student, along with himself, had moved from their stools and were now seated on the desks, as the milk levels had risen from ankle depth to almost the height of the stools, which if nothing else was disgusting and distracting.

If he was going to be honest, he doubted very much that there was anything that they would be able to do about the milk.

Although, he thought, watching as a flock of bright pink and blue former owls swam past, he really hoped there was something.

He was suddenly interrupted from his musings by several loud pops as the room suddenly became occupied by House Elves, which immediately sank beneath the surface.

Moments later they bobbed back up to the top again, grabbing onto unoccupied desks and pulling themselves onto them.

One in particular, wearing an odd assortment of clothing including a tea cosy and yellow and brown striped socks, moved to the front to act as spokesman… or spokes-elf.

"Professor Snape sir! Hermione Granger! We is having a problem!"

The first to recover from the utter shock of the events was Pansy. "Dobby, right? If the problem is milk, then I'm sure you've noticed we all have the same problem. If it's not…"

Dobby was bouncing impatiently on his feet and began to speak the moment the Slytherin girl hesitated. "The school is being doomed! We is all going to die!"

Hermione shook off her own shock. "Dobby! Whatever are you talking about?"

His large eyes went very round and he leaned forward to speak in a loud whisper. "We House Elves is making a big mistake. Shameful, it is."

Dobby looked so dejected that Millicent, who really was a kind soul under those Slytherin robes, impulsively gave him a hug. "I'm sure it's not that bad. Why don't you tell us?"

Tearing up, Dobby nodded. "We is letting It out, by accident, Dobby swears it was an accident!"

Draco frowned. "'It'?"

"We do not speak It's name," said another House Elf in a hushed voice.

"Must be like the House Elf Voldie," Seamus mused. "Or the House Elf version of a basilisk to an acromantula."

Dobby nodded, relieved that they seemed to understand.

Severus was frowning worriedly. "Not to sound insensitive – "

"Because we all know how very out of character that would be," Theodore murmured.

Ignoring him, Severus continued. "But Dobby, we really need to know what 'It' is. We can't help if we don't know."

"Can you write it down?" Hermione gently asked the trembling elf.

He shook his head so hard his tea cosy fell off into the milk. "Dobby is being unable to write, Miss Hermione."

"The Mutation," whispered the House Elf that had spoken before. "The Evolution. The Deterioration. The Decomposition. The Decayed."

All eyes moved to the little Elf.

"But what is it?" Dean questioned.

Seeing that she didn't intend to reply, Parvati tried her luck in coaxing out the information. "Please tell us. If we know, we can stop it. And also, what's your name?

Hope in her large eyes, the House Elf nodded. "I is being Peppy, Miss. And It…It is being…" She stopped and gulped loudly. "The evolving mouldy gouda civilisation uprising." She burst into tears, and the other House Elves immediately began to comfort her.

The humans in the room just stared.

* * *

Hm. Well, that was interesting. And fun. Again.

tenshi no oni – Thanks heaps, and yeah I know the feeling, having people wake up and yell is a bad thing. Gets my mum all shitty. And I'm in Tassie, wishing for more snow to keep me out of college. It isn't going to happen, though.

ISC – Yeesh, yep, I agree, lucky indeed. Although I think I may feel sorry for your friends should you unleash the horrors…and Harry shall be back in the next chapter, scaring people quite frequently.

Shakespeares Whore – Yes, much trouble. We can't have Salazar out late, Rowena and Helga get annoyed. Godric, too. I'm glad you like my vampires, I rather adore them myself (but don't tell _them_ that!). They're all a bit nuts, but they're fun. And the Master Plan…well, I have Herring eating away at the little snag that's got me caught – the prank on Harry and Draco. I mean, know what they're going to be, I just have to write them out.

ReginaLucifer – Hee hee. Glad you liked Luna, and I added in a little Twinkle mention in the next chap.

Kaaera – Well, good luck with Discworld anyway. And hey, there's an idea…though I'm not sure Tom could take that much of Harry at once. He might go crazy…er. Meh, well, I tried what I could in explaining stuff, but if you can think of anything else you need/want to know, say so and I'll see what I can do.

DeppDRACOmaniac – Indeed it shall. And don't worry, it was only the official school owls that are now swimming around. Hedwig, Pig, Draco's owls and any owl owned by a specific student or teacher are still flying.

Howl – Glad you enjoyed it all. As for Ginny…heh heh, I couldn't help but bring her in. And who the hell is who? Now I'm confused… ;-)

In the next chapter, Salazar and Tom react to Harry's declaration, some more dead people show up, and Harry finds good use for his spare time. And the spare space in Tom's office, too…

Please review!

_S. Wolf_


	8. Beanbags

_**Death's Manager**_

_Courtesy of SilverWolf7007_

_**Chapter Eight – Beanbags**_

_**Or, Maternal Reprimands and Evil Plots Afoot**_

Both Tom and Salazar were still staring at Harry in utter shock and horror over seven minutes later.

Rolling his eyes, Harry decided he was probably in for an even longer wait and sat gracefully on the floor. Halfway there, however, a bright blue beanbag appeared, and he ended up seated on it quite comfortably.

Tom and Salazar blinked in shock, but neither reacted more than that – and neither spoke.

Sighing, Harry wandlessly conjured a nailfile and carefully removed all the rough edges he could see. Looking up once he finished that task, he sighed again as he saw that neither Tom nor Salazar were prepared to wake from their stupor.

Frowning thoughtfully, Harry held his hands out for inspection by the two. "So, what colour shall I paint them, do you think?"

He was not given an answer.

Ten minutes later, he was waving his hands about to dry the black nailpolish he had applied.

Salazar finally regained the powers of speech and thought, around the same time his knees weakened and he collapsed.

Thankfully, Harry had been expecting this and conjured the Slytherin founder a bright green beanbag to fall on.

Tom seemed to find this extremely funny, and began to laugh, slumping forward onto his desk for support.

Harry sighed yet again and cleared his throat.

Both of his companions looked at him.

"So, now you've both recovered, any thoughts on my plan?"

Salazar gulped. "It's, uh, very ambitious, isn't it?" he stated. "May I ask _why_ you want to remove the current Headmaster of Hogwarts?"

Harry shrugged. "Ask away."

"And will you answer?" Salazar continued, rolling his eyes.

"Sure, why not?" Harry said. "I'm not going into it too deeply, but…he's a tyrant. We're not allowed to have lemon drops, because they're _his_ sweet. Oh sure, he'll offer them to you in his office, but woe betide should you accept. He'll…_glare_, and…" Harry stopped, gulped and shuddered. "He _Twinkles_ all the time! Plus, he's a manipulative old coot." He shrugged again. "Look, he annoys me, okay?"

Tom and Salazar exchanged one last glance. If the most powerful wizard in thousands of years wanted to overthrow his headmaster simply because the man annoyed him…well. Who were they to disagree?

Salazar sighed. "Sure, okay. Whatever. When do you want to get started on this map? And we'll probably need Godric, Rowena and Helga to help out."

Harry nodded. "That'd be great. And, well…" He looked to Tom. "How long do you reckon I'll be here?"

Tom shrugged. "I don't know. However long you need to be, I guess."

"All right then. In that case, give us a day or two to…play, and I'll get back to you."

"Cool."

Harry and Tom stared.

"What?" Salazar asked defensively. "I'm not allowed to pick up on slang words since being dead?"

* * *

Not long after, Salazar had left, promising to call a truce in his prank war with Godric and discuss the map of Hogwarts with his fellow Founders.

His departure left Harry lounging in his beanbag and Tom seated behind his desk, having found several folders there that he needed to deal with.

There was mostly silence, with the occasional annoyed muttering from Tom and random small bouts of humming from Harry.

Finally, Harry grew tired of this arrangement, and fixed it in the best way he could come up with on such short notice. He turned Tom's chair into a bright purple beanbag.

Yelping in surprise, Tom vanished from view. Harry waited several minutes, tapping his black fingernails in near silence on his own beanbag, checking his watch every few seconds.

Finally, Tom emerged, pulling his beanbag behind him until he was in front of his desk, where he dropped it before sitting back down on it.

"Comfortable?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow as the older man shifted restlessly.

"No," Tom grumbled. "I'm not sure I like this beanbag thing, Harry."

"Why not?" the teen asked innocently. "I'm sure that Kyra and Death will love coming to work and being able to seat themselves in such comfort and style."

Tom stilled, a devious smirk appearing on his face. "You know, I could learn to live with this. As long as you give me a chair to sit on when I'm working at my desk. And you can't just make it shorter, it has very full drawers," he warned.

Harry sighed. "Oh all right." Without even blinking, he conjured a neon pink swivel chair to sit behind the desk.

Taking a deep breath, Tom began to mutter to himself. "Death will find it annoying; I can't kill Harry. Death will find it annoying; I can't kill Harry. Death will find it annoying; I can't kill Harry. Death will find it annoying; I can't kill Harry…"

Deciding to take precautionary action against the murder of his own self, Harry quickly decided whom the next dead person he wanted to see was. "So, can we call in some more visitors?"

Startled (as per Harry's intention), Tom halted his mantra and looked at him. "I don't see why not. Who do you want me to call in this time?"

Harry jumped up out of his beanbag and began rifling through the drawers of the Filing Cabinet of the Dead, and then moved on to the other two cabinets, pulling out the occasional folder, checking it, and either replacing it or tossing it over the desk into Tom's lap.

Tom inspected what ended up being a total of six folders. "Uh, Harry, to sign these I need a – never mind," he finished, plucking his pen from midair where it had been hanging just above his face. "So, you want them all here at once, or what?"

"Yep."

"Isn't that…dangerous?"

"Yep."

"Is there going to be much discussion of overthrowing Dumbledore?"

"Yep."

"And redecorating?"

"Yep."

"And pranking?"

Harry smirked. "Oh yeah."

Tom returned the smirk as he began filling out the first summons. "In that case, let's get started."

* * *

It took Tom ten minutes to fill out all of the summons forms, and once he had finished he and Harry relaxed in their beanbags and waited.

The room was silent.

Tom jumped as a sudden rustling filled the room, but rolled his eyes at the six beanbags that had just appeared. "You really like beanbags, huh?"

"I really do," Harry agreed, examining his fingernails. "Oh…bollocks." He held out his hand, and the small bottle of black nailpolish appeared in it.

Leaning forward as Harry opened the bottle; Tom saw that the third fingernail of his right hand had become chipped.

The gentle jingling of bells and a sharp snapping sound drew Tom's attention away from Harry's small scale crisis to the couple now standing in the middle of the room.

He tried to stand, struggled for a minute, and managed to get to his feet. With a sheepish smile at the amused two, he held out his hand. "I'm Tom, Manager for Death. It's nice to meet you, Mr and Mrs Potter."

Both James and Lily shook Tom's hand, looking around the room curiously.

"I have to say, this isn't quite how I imagined Death's office," Lily said with a laugh. "The beanbags, especially, make this place…bright, I guess."

"Why thank you," emanated a voice from the floor. "I thought they were a nice touch myself. I'd stand up, but I don't want to ruin my nails _again_."

Lily looked down at the teen in the bright blue beanbag and couldn't help but smile. "Hello Harry."

He grinned up at her. "Hiya Mum. Want me to do your nails?"

As James and Tom watched in bemusement, Lily dropped down into the green beanbag that Salazar had vacated and held out her hands. "Oh yes please. But do you have any other colours?"

"Anything you like," Harry offered.

"How about a nice dark red, then?"

"Sure thing."

Three minutes and seven seconds later, James regained his wits. "Uh, Harry?"

"Yes Dad?" his son replied, not looking up.

"You seem to be taking this…calmly."

"Of course. I was expecting you, remember?"

"Well yes, but…oh, who cares?"

"Good question."

"Imp."

"Why thank you. Take a seat, old man."

James glared. "I'll have you know I was only a few years older than you when I died!" he exclaimed as he sat in the Gryffindor red beanbag beside his wife.

"I am _quite_ aware of that," Harry murmured, concentrating on his mother's thumbnail. He _hated_ doing thumbnails. Normally, he had Hermione do his.

Before anything more could be said, the telltale ringing of bells and snapping alerted them to the next arrival.

"I was wondering where you two got off to," Sirius announced. "And where are we?"

"I'm Tom, Manager for Death. Nice to finally meet you, Mr Black."

Sirius winced. "Don't call me Mr Black, I keep thinking you're talking to my penguin."

"Sit down before you fall down, Padfoot," Harry advised, finally finished with painting Lily's nails.

Harry's advice turned out to be moot, as the Animagus yelped in shock and fell into the closest (yellow) beanbag upon hearing his godson's voice.

"Harry?" he demanded in shock. "You're dead?"

"Of course not," Tom snorted. "He doesn't know _how_ to die."

"In that case, I'm officially confused."

"Welcome to the club," James muttered.

Their conversation had covered the signalling of the fourth guest's arrival, and so Cedric had the chance to survey the situation that no one else had really had so far.

And despite what many people thought, not all Hufflepuffs were entirely dense and interested only in growing their own plants (of _all_ kinds).

So of course, Cedric realised faster than anyone what was going on.

The attention he had payed to Harry's life after his own death and the friendship they had…sort of shared beforehand also factored in his realisation.

"So Harry," he began, announcing his presence as he sat in the pink beanbag beside the other teen. "Can I help with this rebellion in Hogwarts?"

Harry smirked. "Of course. I thought you might have an idea of what was going on."

"Oh? What made you think that?"

"Call it intuition," the boy said innocently.

Cedric snorted. "Let me guess, you just suddenly woke up this morning, nearly drowned, and thought, 'hey, I'm going to evict Dumbles and take over Hogwarts! I'll bet Cedric knows what's happening.' Am I right?"

Harry glared at him. "Shut up, you evil Hufflepuff fiend."

Maturely, Cedric poked his tongue out.

Showing equal maturity, Harry replied in kind.

Tom, having seated himself in his purple beanbag again, cleared his throat. "Might I suggest you clue the adults here in before you start wrestling all over the floor?"

"Suggest away," Harry told him, preparing to launch himself at the ex-Hufflepuff.

"_Harry James Potter, don't you dare_!"

"Meep," Harry replied to the maternal reprimand.

Cedric looked smug.

"_Cedric Ian Diggory_!"

"Meep."

Lily, now satisfied, smiled happily and settled back in her beanbag.

James and Sirius exchanged a wary glance.

Lily glared at them.

"Meep," came two quiet voices.

Tom carefully kept his expression neutral, especially when Lily looked his way.

Thankfully for everyone's nerves, the silence was shattered by bells and snapping, signalling the arrival of the last two members of the current group.

Harry grinned up at them both lazily. "Glad you gents could make it. Now, as I know that you're somehow involved in it all, care to tell me _exactly_ why Hogwarts is filled with milk and I'm here?"

Sylvan and Damon shared a glance. "Oh shit," they muttered as one.

"_Language_!"

* * *

Oh, I _like_ this chapter. I really, really do.

Kaaera – Glad you think so. And yeah I know the feeling; sometimes my mum does that too. Ah well. So it was explained okay? I wasn't too sure.

Machiavelli Jr – Very very well hidden. Thanks heaps, yep I'm a definite Pratchett fan, though I didn't realise it was so obvious…and nope, not kidding, Millie's a soft touch, honest!

DeppDRACOmaniac – Not at all, everyone ought to have fave owls. Hedwig's mine, though I kinda like Hermes as well. Poor poor lactose intolerant…on the other hand, this may cause an uprising on _their_ part.

Howl – Bugger about the speaker thing being snapped. And not at all, I quite enjoyed reading that – especially as I was in my rather boring computing class at the time. Heh, glad you enjoyed, and that you like my Ginny. I hoped she'd go over well.

ISC – Oh dear…letting them out might help, yes. Although you might want to see if you can get someone else to do it for you so you don't get killed and all. Hope you enjoyed Harry's…Harryness.

Kail Ceannai – Thanks for all. And that's a good question, I wonder…but anyway, even if they don't say vanishing act, Ron could have always picked it up off 'Mione. And hm. I'm beginning to think that my Pratchett addiction is more influential to my writing than I thought…

Kurai Shinigami – Thanks! And who knows who else will show up, I'm sure that Lily and the rest of that lot up there wont be the only ones.

-KattyKoo- – Why thank you.

mlovektowsing – Yay, thanks. And I'm glad Ginny has been liked so well.

FreedomStar – Well I'm glad you did, and that you think so. Ta.

Next chapter, the kitchen is investigated and Albus Dumbledore does something immeasurably stupid.

Please review!

_S. Wolf_


	9. What the?

_**Death's Manager**_

_Courtesy of SilverWolf7007_

_**Chapter Nine – What the?**_

_**Or, The Sherbet Lemon Stash Dumbledore REALLY Shouldn't Have Stolen**_

Peppy's revelation didn't quite have the reaction on the humans that the House Elves expected.

They did not, as they themselves would have when faced with such news, scream, cry, hide or proclaim that the world was doomed forevermore.

In fact, Dobby noted as he watched them from over Peppy's shoulder, they were just staring. Although, every so often one of them would seem to suppress a scream – surely that was the only explanation for the twitching lips?

On the other side of this, Severus was struggling to keep a straight face. Surely the greatest fear of the House Elves as a race wasn't really mutating mould-ridden cheese?

But judging from their pathetically hopeful faces, that would appear to be the case.

"Perhaps," he began in a tightly controlled tone. "It would be prudent if some of us investigated this infestation in the kitchens. Would anyone care to volunteer?"

Had Neville and Harry been there, they would have scoffed at the absence of volunteering from their fellow Gryffies. Well, except Hermione. Because they would have known that she was only staying to see to the mental wellbeing of the House Elves.

Draco, Blaise and Pansy, of all people, stood up on their desks and volunteered. Had Harry been there, he would have teased them for Gryffindor tendencies.

Parvati also stood. "I'll go too, Professor."

Severus looked over the investigation crew with an amused smile. "All right. You four head down to the kitchens. Once you're done, report to me in Professor McGonagall's classroom. Miss Granger, Miss Bulstrode? I want you two to take the House Elves somewhere quieter." With a frown, he looked at Dean, Seamus and Theodore. "And I suppose you three had best come with me up to Professor McGonagall's classroom."

The students immediately followed his instructions.

* * *

History of Magic with the ineffably oblivious Binns was _finally _over, and it was arguably time for lunch.

Ginny and Luna, who had managed to be the first students into the Great Hall, were mildly shocked to see that while there were many Hufflepuffs, several Gryffindors and Slytherins and even the occasional early Ravenclaw in the Hall, there were no teachers and less food.

Frowning, Ginny decided that now would be a good time to introduce Luna to Bast and Damon – and interrogate them about the food, of course.

She pulled her unprotesting friend down the halls and soon came to the one door that repelled milk. Pushing open the door, she watched the milk flow in…and then flow right back out again.

"Oh good, it works," said a voice from the back of the room. "I'm glad you're here, Gin, it seems we have a problem."

Luna drifted back towards the voice. "Hello. I'm Luna."

"I'm Bast. Um, you don't look like Ginny."

The blonde seemed surprised. "I don't? But I thought we were identical!"

Ginny, knowing Luna better than most and able to recognise the other girl's sarcasm, snorted as she headed deeper into the room. "I _am _here, Bast. What's the problem? And," she added, looking around. "Where's Damon?"

Bast winced. "Ah, well, that would be the problem. Damon just vanished."

"Vanished as in vanished like Harry?" asked Luna.

"No," Bast told them grimly. "Vanished as in with bells and a snap. Vanished as in summoned to the office of Death."

Ginny's eyes widened in horror. "Oh, that's _so_ not good!"

"I don't understand," admitted Luna, somewhat more lucid than normal. "Has he died?"

Bast sighed. "No, worse." Luna looked stunned, so he quickly continued. "Summoned as a guest. Probably by invitation of Harry."

"Oh. Where he may be required to reveal that he, you, and Ginny were partly the cause of Harry's being there, yes?"

Ginny nodded. "That'd be the problem."

* * *

Draco was not a Gryffindor. He was quite proud of this fact.

However, it negated one explanation as to why he had volunteered to lead an expedition to investigate the validity of the House Elves' claims.

After a few minutes of discussion, the four of them worked out why they were all here.

Parvati, of course, actually _was_ a Gryffindor, which pretty much explained it all.

Blaise was positive that he, Draco and Pansy were just insane. No one else had a better idea, so the excuse stuck.

Since they were in the dungeons anyway, it didn't take them long to reach the kitchens. Outside the portrait of fruit, they paused to discuss their strategy. Or something like that.

Draco laid his plan out for the others. "I was thinking we open the portrait, one of us looks in, and then assuming the House Elves are right we run like hell. If they're wrong, we head in for some food. Any problems?"

There were none.

Carefully, Blaise reached out and tickled the pear. The moment the portrait swung open, both Pansy and Parvati stepped forwards and looked inside.

Draco and Blaise waited tensely, becoming more and more nervous the longer the two girls stood staring silently into the kitchens.

Finally, Pansy and Parvati slowly moved backwards.

As though suddenly awakening from a trance, Parvati slammed the portrait closed again as Pansy grabbed Draco's arm. Parvati grabbed Blaise's and they quickly pulled the boys from the area at a run.

Sick of being dragged around, they dug their heels in half way between the Potions classroom and the Great Hall.

Taking in the expressions of fear and horror on their faces, Draco took a flying leap at the nearest conclusion. "The House Elves were telling the truth?"

Pansy shuddered. "They were. And…"

"It was horrible," Parvati continued numbly. "Absolutely revolting. I don't think I'll ever be able to eat cheese again – not that I could anyway."

"Lactose intolerant?" asked an understanding Blaise. When she nodded, he smiled wryly. "Me too. And I can honestly say _really_ don't like what's going on here at the moment."

"We need to go and tell Snape what's happening," Draco broke in. "And put some more distance between us and the kitchens," he added, glancing pointedly at the shaken girls.

Blaise nodded. "Come on then, ladies. The next part of our quest awaits!"

Rolling their eyes, Pansy and Parvati began to follow them to the Transfiguration classroom.

* * *

Unlike the Potions class, the Transfiguration students had the most boring lesson possible – well, as long as History of Magic was left as an exception.

Nothing of use had been found (predicably) and even Crabbe and Ron falling off their stools and later desks several times into the milk, while quite amusing, couldn't completely lighten the mood.

Although, Neville, Lavender, Goyle and Minerva all snickered every time it happened.

Not long before lunch, the boredom was exterminated by the arrival of Severus, Theodore, Dean and Seamus on his heels.

"Severus!" Minerva exclaimed in surprise. "What on earth?"

"Sorry to just barge in, Minerva," he said, seating himself on her desk. "But the House Elves have just come to us claiming to be being attacked by maliciously evolving cheese."

She blinked in shock, not processing that the boys that had arrived with the Potions Professor were sitting with their classmates and talking in low tones. "My goodness," she managed finally. "Do you think it's true?"

He shrugged. "No idea. I sent some of the students to investigate."

Minerva looked over the students in the room. "Six of them?" she asked.

"Oh no. Miss Granger and Miss Bulstrode are consoling the hysterical Elves in another room," he told her.

"I…see…."

* * *

Albus usually spent his mornings in his office, signing papers, occasionally meeting with parents or Ministry officials, and dealing with various other school business.

Usually, he also spent all of this time eating lemon drops.

So of course, when deprived of his lemon drops, Albus couldn't bring himself to do anything else. And as there was no one he had to meet, there wasn't anything that couldn't wait.

Knowing that he'd have to do it all eventually, Albus decided to hunt down a temporary replacement for his precious lemon drops.

Naturally, his first inclination was towards sherbet lemons, an addiction he had given up the same year Bill Weasley started at Hogwarts.

It took him a while to find any. For some reason, they were all stashed in the same place, as though someone was hoarding them.

Nevertheless, this didn't worry him. The sherbet lemon stash in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom had just become his.

Had Albus known the outcome of this pilferage, he might have chosen a different sweet to replace the lemon drops.

The last thing he should have picked to steal was Harry Potter's sherbet lemon stash.

* * *

Now, I'm fairly sure that they're lemon drops in the US editions and sherbet lemons in the UK (and Aussie) editions, but I'm just going with the fact that in most fics I read he has lemon drops, and I personally am addicted to sherbet lemons (I blame Alaina).

So that's my excuse.

Albus, as you can see, has pretty much signed his own death warrant. Silly old man…

Kaaera – Oh good. Glad you enjoyed it, and yeah I figured that James, Lily and Siri were obvious. As you can see, Dumbles did a very silly thing.

Kurai Shinigami – Heh, thanks!

mercyangel – Thanks heaps, glad it helped your morning!

maleficus-lupus – Heh, well here you are then.

LoonyLoopyLisa – Thanks, and hey, don't worry about it!

poff-it – Oh, probably.

SmellyCat190 – Whee, thanks!

goddessa39 – Hm, Dumbles helping the cheese…no, he hasn't gone that far…yet…

DeppDRACOmaniac – Oh yeah. Thanks. And also…yes, I have to agree…everyone and their cheese _are_ uprising, really. Well, so maybe Dumbles isn't just now, but with Harry's rebellion going on, that involves a whole heap of people.

ivan the terrable – Glad you think so!

ISC – Funnily enough, its one of my faves as well. I do like the next one too though. Oh dear. Though of course they weren't going to be happy about it. Hm, well, probably not too much of a goth, perhaps a little bit…certainly with the nails. Then, I'm not a goth, and my nails are currently black (Harry inspired me).

Shakespeares Whore – Oh all right, but be gentle with them. And try not to get Rowena and Helga _too _drunk. I did a bit more of the Master Plan today, so I'm getting there! And ouch…falling off the bed was probably not a good plan. Glad you like Cedric. And the chapter in general. And the fic…heh. So thanks.

mlovektowsing – I rather liked that part myself!

Great Many Thanks to all.

In the next chapter, explanations are given, someone is remembered, planning for pranks begins, sherbet lemons are sucked…and Harry sends people into shock again.

Please review!

_S. Wolf_


	10. Uh Oh

_**Death's Manager**_

_Courtesy of SilverWolf7007_

_**Chapter Ten – Uh Oh…**_

_**Or, Aren't We Forgetting Someone?**_

Harry, who was smiling serenely at Sylvan and Damon over his steepled fingers, was also trying his best not to start snarling at them. He was quite enjoying his time here, but was nevertheless somewhat annoyed that no one had asked for his consent before Gryffie-napping him.

Sylvan sighed and sank into the orange beanbag. "Look, it's a _really_ long story."

"Two things," Harry pointed out, holding up two fingers. "Just two. One, I'm sure we have a while. Two, you could always give us the condensed version."

"All right," Damon agreed brightly as he dropped into the even brighter lime green beanbag. "There was a prophecy, there were some vampires, there was a school of magic, there was some milk, there was some kid with a funny hyphenated nickname, and there was an office belonging to Death's Manager. Stir and serve, and one gets this mess," he concluded, waving a hand expansively.

There was mostly silence after that, in which several people blinked rapidly and Tom wondered exactly what he had done in his rather unremarkable past to warrant this kind of treatment and stress.

Sylvan broke this bemused silence with a theatrical sigh. "Damon, you moron," he muttered, slapping the younger vampire around the back of the head. "Honestly, I wonder about you sometimes. Don't know _how_ Talia puts up with you."

"Practice?" Harry suggested dryly.

"Would have to be lots of it," Sylvan said with a nod.

"Quite."

Lily cleared her throat. "Not to interrupt your indirect insults, gentlemen, but as the 'condensed' version made about as much sense as a kangaroo on a vacuum cleaner trying to paint a Hippogriff yellow, I'm going to take the initiative to ask for something less vague."

"Ah, but Damon is the prince of vague, didn't you know?" Harry asked in mock surprise. His mother did _not_ look impressed. "All right, all right. And I have to admit to my own curiosity. Sylvan? The floor is yours."

"Why thank you," the blond vampire said, bowing in his seat and rolling his eyes. "Anyway, so Helga made this prophecy…"

* * *

"…And so, here we all are," Sylvan finished with a relieved sigh.

"So why, dare I even ask, is Harry – not to mention the rest of us – even here?" Cedric asked after a moment's pause. "I mean, there's got to be a reason."

"There probably is," Damon agreed. "But we probably wont even know what that reason is until it's all over."

"I wouldn't be surprised," James muttered. "Prophecies are stupid, untrustworthy, annoying, mostly falsified – "

"Uh, Dad? You're ranting."

James looked utterly shocked. "Well would you look at that? So I am."

Harry shook his head. "Never mind. Anyway, there are a couple of things currently occurring to me."

"Oh? And what would those be?" asked a somewhat wary Tom.

"Thing one: we're missing someone. Thing two: I haven't explained my plan yet."

Tom groaned. "All right, brat. Who do you want me to call in so we can get on with this bloody explanation?"

Harry pulled a folder out from under his beanbag, checked to make sure his nails had emerged unscathed (they had), and handed it to Tom.

"Oh, of course,' he sighed. "I should have guessed." He wrote the summons and everyone waited in silence until the telltale jingle and snap heralded the arrival of Remus Lupin.

Remus blinked and looked around, taking in the people he was currently sharing a room with. "I'm not even going to ask just yet," he sighed, sinking into the final (black) beanbag.

Grinning, Harry waved. "Hiya, Uncle Moony!"

Rolling his eyes affectionately, Remus smiled back. "Hello, Harry. Have I missed much?"

Harry shrugged. "Naw. Just Sylvan explaining how Helga Hufflepuff made a prophecy that he helped carry out. Welcome to Death's office."

Sirius cleared his throat. "Please Moony, I beg you. Tell me you're just as confused as I am?"

Remus laughed. "Oh, probably not, I'm afraid. I spent a portion of summer with Harry, so I can't say _anything_ really surprises me any more."

Harry smirked at him. "I'm going to overthrow Dumbledore, take over Hogwarts, instate Professor McGonagall as Headmistress, deal with Voldie and then go on holiday somewhere with nice beaches."

"Ah."

"Surprised?"

"Nope."

"Damn." Harry looked around and saw that barring Cedric, the new arrivals were all in a similar state of shock to what had befallen Tom and Salazar earlier. He glanced at Remus's hands. "Moony…"

"No."

"Please?"

"No. Har, you're the only evil little usurper of power that I've met and actually liked – "

"And the only one, I'll bet," Harry muttered.

"But I refuse to let you paint my nails," Remus finished, ignoring Harry's interruption.

"Don't even think about it," Cedric warned as Harry's eyes strayed to him.

"I'm not even going to ask," he told Tom, who was just glaring at him. "So don't worry."

Lily shook herself suddenly. "Thank god!"

"What?" the three of them demanded.

"I honestly think that it's past time Dumbledore got what's coming to him."

Harry grinned brightly. "I'm glad you think so. Will you help?"

"Undomesticated equines could not prevent me," she told him solemnly.

"Lils, stop trying to be funny," Sirius complained, evidently over his shock. "We're not going to be able to help Harry take over Hogwarts if we've all died in horror from your bad jokes."

"_Sirius_!"

He smiled innocently. "Sorry Lily darling, but it's true."

"You chatting up my wife again, Black?" James accused, hiding a grin.

"Like I would! She's bloody insane, I tell you!"

"Well, yes," James allowed. "But in a good way."

Lily threw up her hands in exasperation. "_Males_! Honestly!"

"I take offence at that accusation," Harry said mildly.

"You're not male?" Damon asked with a raised eyebrow.

Harry glared at him. "Who said you could speak? I'm still annoyed with you."

He and Sylvan exchanged a glance and a shrug. "So?"

"So, I wont let you prank Death and help take over Hogwarts if you don't be nice to me and do everything I say."

"You drive a hard bargain, kid," Sylvan sighed. "All right, we'll be good."

Harry smirked over his steepled fingers. "Excellent."

"So Harry," James began curiously. "Dumbledore has that weird addiction to sweets. Is that just his personal quirk, or do all insane genius's have weird sugar addictions?"

Harry grinned and held out his hand. "You tell me." He concentrated for a moment.

Nothing happened.

"I know it works here, I had one a while ago," he muttered with a frown. "What…"

Remus was looking at him with concern. "Are you all right, Harry? What are you trying to do?"

"Someone's bloody well tampered with my sherbet lemon stash!" he exclaimed indignantly. "Who the hell would dare do that?"

"I can think of someone," the werewolf admitted with dread in his tone.

"Oh?" Harry said poisonously. "Who?"

Remus swallowed. "A lemon drop deprived Albus Dumbledore."

Harry's eye twitched. "Dumbles is going down," he said ominously.

* * *

It took some work, but they eventually got Harry calmed enough to move back onto his original reason for bringing them all.

"You want us to prank Death?" Lily asked in a strange tone. "Are you completely mad, Harry?"

Harry pouted. "Not _completely_," he said sulkily. "Just mostly."

James, Sirius and Remus, on the other hand, were nowhere near as reluctant. They merely saw it as a challenge – and a chance for the Marauders to work together once more.

Cedric was likewise eager, as he (along with many Hogwarts students over the past several years) had worshipped the Marauders – though not knowing their true identities, of course – and revelled in the chance to work with them.

Sylvan had produced a small notepad and a pen from his pocket and was making a list of ideas, with a worried and somewhat nervous Damon hanging over his shoulder, alternately giving suggestions and muttering about their imminent deaths should they dare presume.

Tom was just watching them all, grinning evilly. He was obviously pleased with Harry's choices of pranksters.

It took Harry all of ten minutes to talk his mother into going along with them, and another five seconds for her to become enthusiastic about the idea.

Harry grinned in delight. Once they had set up some lovely traps for Death, Kyra, Tom's Fairy Godfather and the Tooth Fairy, they were going to work on his plot against Dumbledore.

Oh yes, that bearded maniac was going down. Down, so very far down… "Hm, maybe I should bury him alive," he mused.

Lily eyed him worriedly and leaned over to whisper to Tom. "I don't suppose you could get him some sherbet lemons? I'm concerned that he's not exactly…stable without them."

Tom raised an eyebrow at her. "I'm fairly sure he's not stable at the best of times, Lily. But yes, I can get him some."

She smiled in relief. "Thank you. And might I suggest a little redecorating? I daresay Death would hate that."

Sylvan looked up sharply from his notebook, almost slamming his head into Damon's nose. "Did someone say redecorating?" he asked with a strange glint in his eyes. "I love to redecorate."

Tom smirked. "Oh please. Have at it."

"Ooooh, fun!" Sylvan bounced out of his beanbag and turned to Tom. "Do you have any large pieces of paper? And some crayons?"

Partially worried and partially curious, Tom found Sylvan some paper he deemed suitable and ducked out of the office to find crayons and sherbet lemons.

He returned not long after and passed the items to their respective recipients.

Sylvan immediately got to work designing his masterpiece, while Harry offered sherbet lemons to everyone around the one in his mouth.

Once everyone was sucking on a sweet, he dropped the bag next to Sylvan's crayons on Tom's desk and leaned over the vampire's shoulder, making recommendations as the drawing progressed.

This, Tom realised as he surveyed the group in his office, was going to be immensely fun.

* * *

Whee, randomness.

Fun…

Shakespeares Whore – Oh, they're wonderful. Honest, I got both a friend of mine and my mother hooked on them as well as myself. Well, I'm glad you're enjoying your playtime with the Founders.

Kaaera – Heh. As you can see, Harry does _not_ react well to people messing with his stash. As for the cheese…well. You'll see. But I think you'll be fine eating it as long as it's not a) mouldy or b) evolving. If it is though…best to avoid. As for vacuum…it's an evil word. Very confusing. And ow. Sawdust. Ow.

Kurai Shinigami – Oh yeah, Harry's not happy. He's very, very annoyed. And he likes shocking people.

ISC – Your nails sound so very cool. I mean really. Really. Really. Cool. One thing about nailpolish that pisses me off is that I can't find a decent green. I have about 50 different bottles, two greens, and they both suck. Sigh. On the other hand, you've inspired me to go with bright alternating colours when the black's gone. I had purple, metallic blue and bright pink a few months ago. Colours are good. Glad you like the chapter.

goddessa39 – Heh. Well, I figure he used a spell to hunt them out. And then probably just summoned them rather than actually go get them.

SmellyCat190 – Yay! Another sherbet lemon fan. I too understand, but I see Harry's side as well – I'd be ready for some homicide if anyone stole some from me.

mlovektowsing – Hee hee, well, here you are! The plans. Well, kind of plans…

In the next chapter, we learn what SKIDAS stands for, who the members are, and the cheese call in reinforcements.

Please review!

_S. Wolf_


	11. House Elves, We Have a Problem

_**Death's Manager**_

_Courtesy of SilverWolf7007_

_**Chapter Eleven – House Elves, We Have a Problem**_

_**Or, The Truth About Gryffindor's Alliances**_

Once Draco, Blaise, Pansy and Parvati had joined the group in Minerva's office and explained that the House Elves were in fact correct, the question became what they should do next.

"I'm personally all for lunch," Ron suggested hopefully.

As neither Hermione nor Harry was present, Lavender stepped into their role and slapped Ron across the back of the head. "Moron. And _where_, exactly, were you planning to get this lunch from? The kitchen?"

Ron shuddered, recalling the vivid descriptions of the scene within the kitchen that Pansy and Parvati had given. "Er, I think I'll pass…"

"Good plan," Seamus said, rather sarcastically. "I'm feeling my intelligence rising just from being in the same room as you, Ron."

"Shut up, Finnigan."

"Make me, Weasley!"

"You sure?" Ron asked angrily, pointing his wand at the blond boy.

Blaise stepped in to prevent bloodshed (Ron's). "Weasley, back off. Finnigan, relax. Murdering him might make you feel better, but all the blood will only make the milk more disgusting."

Seamus sent a horrified look at the milk in question. "Good point," he conceded. "All right, the murder can wait…for now."

"I think I may have a better plan," Neville said quietly.

Immediately, all eyes were trained on him, waiting.

"Anyone else think it's suspicious that the Headmaster is, well, absent? Still going about his day as normal?"

"You think he's behind this?" Draco asked in surprise.

Neville raised an eyebrow. "Don't you?"

"Well yes," Draco admitted freely. "But you're not only a Gryffindor, Longbottom, but you're one of Harry Potter's best friends. Doesn't that automatically make Dumbledore a good guy in your eyes?"

The Gryffindors exchanged glances before collapsing on their desks laughing hysterically.

Minerva and Severus eyed first the students, then each other. "Do you have any idea what's so funny?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "Not a clue, Severus. But this may make things easier, if my Gryffindors don't, in fact, worship Dumbledore."

He nodded. "Yes, it will. Let's keep listening. I think Longbottom is beginning to breathe again."

As Severus had said, Neville was regaining his composure – though he was the only one. Dean, Seamus, Lavender, Ron and Parvati were still laughing and gasping for air.

Theodore, too, had noticed this. "All right then, Longbottom. Want to explain the hysterical laughing thing?"

"Sure," Neville agreed, still grinning. "Look, as you're all Slytherins – or teachers," he added with a nod to the two professors, "I suppose it makes sense that you don't know."

"Know _what_?" demanded a frustrated Draco.

"Know exactly what Harry's feelings towards Dumbles really are," Parvati told him, also having calmed.

The rest of the Gryffindors had followed suit, and all were now sitting on their desks smiling amusedly.

"And what _are_ they?" Blaise asked. "Come on, you've got to give us more to go on than that."

"Well," Lavender began. "At least once a week, Dumbles does something that _really_ pisses Harry off, and so we get a rant. Therefore we know _exactly_ what he thinks of him. And it's not very complimentary."

Blaise's eyes widened. "He started it," he breathed in awe.

"Started what?" inquired Dean, a little confused.

"The Society for Kicking that Infernal Dumbledore's Arse Skywards."

"SKIDAS?" Dean asked sceptically. He was also trying to covertly send a hint to his friends – one in particular.

However, that certain one hadn't caught the hint and was nodding. "Yep," Seamus said cheerfully. "Harry founded SKIDAS all right! And we're all members."

Dean just buried his head in his hands with a defeated sigh.

Blaise eyed his fellow Slytherins, and seeing no disagreement he nodded. "So are we."

There was a throat clearing from the teacher's desk. Everyone looked up.

A somewhat embarrassed looking Minerva smiled at them sheepishly. "As am I."

Severus sighed mournfully. "All right, I'll admit it. I actually helped found the damn thing. I swear, I tried so very hard…but there was nothing I could do to change the name once Potter had made up his mind."

Draco also sighed, nodding. "Yes, I know. I tried as well."

"So did I," Parvati revealed. "But Harry was adamant to keep SKIDAS."

"Could have been worse, though," Ron offered. "I mean, at least it's not spew."

"It's S-P-E-W Ronald Weasley! And _you_ would do well to remember it!"

"I see Hermione and Millicent are back," Blaise observed dryly to Draco and Theodore.

"Ow," Ron complained to the girl currently holding his left ear in a death grip. "'Mione, let go!"

Pansy turned aside from the drama to Millicent. "You've gotten the House Elves calmed down, then?"

The other girl nodded. "Yep. Plus, Dobby, Winky and Peppy have agreed to spy for us. Both on what's going on and other things, they said." She frowned. "I don't understand what else, though."

"Well, as Potter apparently founded SKIDAS and this lot, teachers included, are all members, I daresay they also are and were offering to keep an eye on the Headmaster for us."

With a pop and a splash, all three House Elves mentioned appeared in the room. A second pop saw them land somewhat more safely on an unoccupied desk.

Dobby looked around the room at the students and teachers assembled. "As Miss Pansy has guessed, we House Elves are being members of Harry Potter's SKIDAS. Dobby, Peppy and Winky are to be representing!"

"We is wanting to help in any way," Winky continued. "We is not wanting It to have a hold on Hogwarts."

"And we is not wanting Professor Dumbles to be Headmaster any longer," Peppy finished.

"You…you want us to overthrow Dumbledore?" Ron choked out.

"Of course they don't," said a voice from the door. "They just want you to know it's going to happen…and that we're all going to be a part of it."

All eyes were on Ginny, who was standing in the doorway with Luna, Bast standing behind them.

"We are?" Parvati asked. "How? Why?"

Luna smiled, somewhat dreamy yet still managing to be both devious and fierce. "As members of SKIDAS, we have all vowed to help Harry kick Dumbles out whenever he chooses to do so. And we are here to tell you, that time will be very, very soon."

"Finally!" Draco and Neville exclaimed.

* * *

Ginny, Luna and Bast had joined them all in Minerva's classroom, and soon explanations had begun on both sides.

Once it was done, discussions began on what to do about the cheese while waiting for Harry to show up and lead them to victory over Dumbles.

It was decided to send in reconnaissance to find out what was happening down there.

The House Elves, Hermione and Millicent immediately became the intelligence-gathering group, joined by Theodore.

Once they had left to begin, conversation took an interesting turn.

"So," Draco had begun casually. "When did you all begin to hate Dumbles?"

Everyone exchanged glances.

"He offered me a lemon drop back in first year," Pansy began. "I'm allergic to citrus, and I told him that. He said oh, such a shame, ate one and carried on…but he asked me again the next day!"

* * *

A small butterfly was winging its way out of the castle.

It was, one assumed, an average butterfly with nothing special about it.

This much was true.

Well, unless one counted the fact that it was being used as a messenger for Hogwarts' current infestation of cheese spawn.

* * *

In a place far, far away, several small black and white heads looked up at the blue butterfly that was heading their way.

Their leader held out a…limb…for it to land on.

He removed the small note attached and absentmindedly ate the butterfly as he unfurled it.

'We Have Succeeded In Securing The Kitchens. Your Way Is Now Clear. Be Here Soon.'

He looked around at his fellows. "Men, we have a go."

* * *

Winky and Peppy were hooked into listening devices, currently in the Room of Requirement with the majority of the House Elves, along with Millicent, Hermione and Theodore, who were also hooked up.

Dobby, on the other hand, had taken an invisibility potion given to him by Severus and had snuck back into the kitchens.

He was sneaking around, trying to hear the plans being discussed, but was having no luck.

His luck was about to change.

A strange whirring had begun, accompanying the appearance of a swirly blue and white two-dimensional oval.

He reported this to HQ.

* * *

Theodore frowned. "That sounds like a portal of some kind."

Hermione nodded. "It does. What do you think the cheese is bringing in?"

"Rancid butter?" Millicent suggested wryly.

* * *

Dobby's eyes widened as the leader moved through the portal into the kitchen, followed by his small retinue.

He faithfully reported what he saw.

* * *

After a short, furious, whispered discussion between the five of them, Winky, Peppy, Millicent and Theodore nominated Hermione to inform the other House Elves of what was going on.

She stood up and looked around gravely. "House Elves, we have a problem."

* * *

"It's a bit warm here, don't you think, General?"

The General in question looked down at his second in command. "Yes, it is. But we must be patient. Soon, this castle will be ours."

Dobby shuddered.

* * *

The door burst open and Theodore ran in, just as Parvati began explaining how Dumbledore had banned her from the Ravenclaw Common Room, and Padma from Gryffindor. "Just because we tend to cause a little trouble! It's a twin thing, they never separated the Weasley twins like this!"

"The cheese have called in reinforcements!" he gasped out, slumping against the nearest desk, ignoring the fact that the milk was absent from the room.

Bast, who had gotten tired of the milk and expelled it, looked up sharply. "Reinforcements? Who?"

Theodore shuddered. "The penguins have landed."

* * *

_Ah yes, the penguins. Let it be said now that it's not my fault. It's all the fault of a friend of mine, our anti-penguin discussions of world domination, and that damned msn pic he did in Photoshop that put a penguin in a Jaffa's battle armour._

_Sigh…_

ISC – Aw, that is SO unfair. I'd kill for a good Slytherin green, but I've never seen anything even close. But at least I now know it exists! No, Remus isn't dead. Harry just decided that having all the Marauders was better than just two. Purple with lime green and blue with orange sounds wonderful. I'm going to have to do mine silver this weekend for my end of year formal, but after that… (shrugs) Any suggestions? Anyway, glad you liked!

Machiavelli Jr – Thank you, thank you. Plots are to be avoided at all costs. Gin will be having bigger parts than in this chapter later, so no worries on that account. Tom…he's addicted to Minties. Rabbits are scary, and I'm glad the vampires are growing on you. As for the nailpolish, that's over. And yep, I imagine reaping souls DOES lose its attraction after a while.

HPKid328 – Glad you like the chaos :-D.

_Everyone else who reviewed I replied to using the nifty new reply feature. Just in case you didn't know that yet… I love you guys, you're all so nice to me…heh._

_Anyway, please review! _

S. Wolf


	12. Prank Planning and Redecoration

_**Death's Manager**_

_Courtesy of SilverWolf7007_

_**Chapter Twelve –Prank Planning and Redecoration**_

_**Or, Who Said We Couldn't Have Our Own Christmas?**_

As the only present individual who had witnessed Sylvan's first (and thankfully only) attempt at redecorating, Damon felt completely justified in being worried.

He also wasn't reassured by Harry also having taken up a crayon and joining in.

Tom, on the other hand, had been offering suggestions, and no one had missed that every so often his hand twitched in the direction of the closest crayon.

James, Sirius and Remus had grabbed their own sheet of paper, as well as the red, yellow and black crayons (corresponding with their beanbags), and were leaning over it planning the pranks that were to be pulled on Death and the others.

Lily and Cedric, while not actually writing anything down, were discussing the same thing.

It was about then that Damon realised that he had nothing to do.

He sighed.

There was a sudden movement from the desk, but just before he could turn and look something smacked him in the head.

Hard.

"Ow! What the bloody hell – " He glanced down into his lap and recognised the notepad that he and Sylvan had been using earlier. "Sylvan, you prat! That _hurt_!"

The blond vampire smiled innocently and threw a green crayon, which Damon managed to catch. "Get over it and start scribbling some ideas. I know the way your mind works, kid. You've got some damned good pranks floating around in there."

Damon rolled his eyes, but flipped the notepad open to a new page and tried to write.

This became much easier when he turned the crayon around so the pointy end was touching the paper.

Again, he sighed.

* * *

_**From the Notepad of Damon**_

_**Operation: Prank Death**_

_(AKA Operation: Deathwish)_

_Idea One – Robe_

_Taking a wild guess, and looking at the pictures on the wall, shows that Death wears a black robe as mythology predicts. Colour change, anyone? Perhaps take page out of Dumbles' book, stars and moons? Glitter? Animated clowns?_

_Idea Two – Scythe_

_Perhaps not a good idea to actually alter Death's scythe, but hiding and replacing it? Maybe with glowing plastic trident…or plastic battery operated glowing light sabre?_

_Idea Three – Paintings on Wall_

_Every office needs paintings, surely? Is it unreasonable of me to imagine putting some up? Again with clowns, bunnies, ducklings…_

_Special Note – Can we put some rubber ducks on the ceiling?_

_**From the Paper of Moony, Padfoot and Prongs**_

_**The Plan – To Maraud in Death's Office**_

_J – Flying paper cranes in flashing colours ought to brighten the place up._

_S – Dye the carpet? What time of year is it? Halloween? Christmas?_

_R – Shouldn't you have been paying attention to this sort of thing?_

_S – Stop being a prat, Moony, and answer the damned question._

_R – Yeah yeah yeah… Unfortunately, Paddy, it's nearing the end of April. You've missed them both._

_S – Bollocks._

_R – I agree. That could have been a spectacular idea._

_J – Who actually ever said that it had to be Halloween or Christmas for us to decorate in the spirit of one holiday or the other?_

_R – Should I answer that?_

_J – No._

_S – In that case, can I write it, can I can I can I?_

_R – Oh all right…_

_S – Phase One: Bring Christmas to Death's Office._

_J – Phase Two?_

_**From the Discussions of Lily and Cedric**_

_Cedric: I think we've got a tough job here, Lily._

_Lily: What makes you say that?_

_Cedric: Well, you heard Sylvan; apparently Damon has good prank ideas. And we both know that the Marauders are experts. What we need to do is think up something that none of them will… That way, our ideas stand out and we actually get to carry off our plans._

_Lily: You're definitely right there. Damon, I think, is likely to go after Death himself. As for the others…well, if I know James, Sirius and Remus – and believe me, I do – then they'll begin with redecorating. Er, that is, over the redecorating that Harry, Sylvan and Tom are cooking up…_

_Cedric: Which leaves us… Which leaves us what? I mean, there are still Kyra, the Tooth Fairy and the Fairy Godfather. Should we focus on them?_

_Lily: Hm…not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all…_

_Cedric: Yay for me. I had a good idea. But what shall we do to them?_

_Lily: Ah, now _that_ is the question!_

_**From the Paper of Tom, Harry and Sylvan**_

_-Half of the sheet is taken up by a square labelled 'Death's Office' in orange crayon. In this square is one rectangle and a circle (labelled 'Tom's desk' and 'Tom's chair' respectively), and seven more circles labelled as beanbags. The other half of the page is taken up with notes, with occasional arrows pointing to various parts of the 'office' square-_

_S – Right, so, walls (arrow) with floral wallpaper, pale pink, tiny green and blue flowers. Very 'delicate' looking._

_H – That sounds immensely scary. Well done. The door (arrow) shall be dark purple with teeny tiny orange stars._

_T – Oh I give in. I'm helping now. Curtains (arrow) are to be lace and cream. With silver glitter._

_S – I needed you two around when I did my original decorating…want to help me do the White House when we're done?_

_H – No. Because Jimmy would kill me. _

_S – Aw, he won't care…_

_H – Yes. He will. And he'll get annoyed and lock you out of the Void again and you'll have to crash on my couch and by then I'll be back at the Dursley's and you'll end up being sat on by Dudley. What do you say?_

_S – Meep._

_H – Good answer._

_

* * *

_

Harry, Tom and Sylvan were the first to stop plotting, and after finishing the colouring in of the illustration of their plan, Tom and Sylvan sat on the desk and watched Harry work.

Occasionally glancing back at their plans, Harry waved his hand several times, concentrating carefully.

It wasn't long before he was done, and the door, walls and curtains had been changed to fit the specifications of the plan.

"Nice," Tom said quietly as Harry perched next to him. "Death will hate it. And Kyra is liable to pass out from horror."

Harry smirked. "Wonderful. Now, time to relax…" He slid off the desk and collapsed back into his beanbag.

Shrugging, Tom and Sylvan followed suit.

Finally, Damon looked up from his notes. His jaw dropped. "Holy shit, this place is hideous!"

"_Language_!" Lily scolded. Damon looked sheepish, but his and Lily's exclamations had the effect of drawing the attention of Cedric and the Marauders to the redecoration.

"I'm with Damon on this one," Cedric said weakly.

Sirius glanced from James to Remus and back again. "It's perfect. And it'll clash horribly with what we have in mind."

With that, the three men pulled out their wands and began casting spells.

The first change was the carpet. Previously a dark grey, it was now Slytherin green.

Sirius winced. "Moony…"

"I know, I know. But it fits with the other stuff."

"Oh, all right…"

The carpet was soon joined by a large green pine tree in the corner.

"Is that random, or is it just me?" Harry asked the room in general.

"It's random," Tom told him.

"Actually, it's just you two," James corrected. He waved his wand and a strand of lights wound around the tree, followed by Moony's tinsel and Sirius's coloured balls.

Seeing where this was going, Harry beat them to the star, which ended up being silver, glittery and glowing.

James shrugged. "Not bad, kid."

"Thanks…I think."

Eventually, they added tinsel around the door, garlands around the windows and Remus conjured a stuffed bear wearing a scarf and Santa hat to sit on Tom's desk.

There was silence.

"A bear, Moony?" James asked finally.

Cedric had stood up and was eyeing the bear with a grin. He reached out…and squeezed its arm.

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas," the bear sand. "Toys in every store. But the prettiest sight to see, is the holly that will be, on your own…front…door! Merry Christmas!"

Silence again descended upon the group.

"He's so _cute_!" Lily exclaimed suddenly.

"Er, Prongs?"

"Yes Padfoot?"

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

James looked confused. "Uh…no?"

Remus pulled out their Plan and pointed to the first line.

"Oh. Oops."

With a wave of James' wand, the room was filled with paper cranes flying around, flashing from red and silver to green and gold and other combinations of the four colours.

"Ooooh, pretty…"

"Why thank you, Harry."

It was at this point that Damon cleared his throat. "Does anyone mind if I add a thing or two?"

No one did.

He quickly added a few picture frames with paintings of clowns, fluffy bunnies, one of a puppy and a kitten playing with a red ball…and one of a baby dragon playing with a unicorn foal.

"They fit in with the wallpaper," Tom commended with an approving nod.

"I know," Damon agreed. He grinned and pointed at the ceiling before leaning back in his beanbag with a satisfied smirk.

As one, the others looked up.

Yet again, there was utter silence.

Eventually, Harry broke it. "Damon?"

"Yes Harry?"

"There are rubber ducks on the ceiling."

"Yes Harry."

"_Yellow_ rubber ducks."

"Yes Harry."

"And they're upside down."

"Yes Harry."

"And one of them is wearing lipstick."

"Yes Harry."

"Damon?"

"Yes Harry?"

"That was insanely brilliant."

"Thank you, Harry."

They shared a grin as everyone got comfortable in their beanbags.

"Has everyone got their prank ideas ready for use tomorrow morning?" Harry asked as soon as everyone was looking at him attentively. He received nods from them all. "Good. This means we get to talk about getting rid of Dumbledore now."

"Yay!" Cedric burst out. They all looked at him. "What? If he'd known he had an impostor on his staff, I wouldn't be dead. And nothing against you all, but I miss life on occasion."

"Anyway," Harry broke in. "The first thing I would like to address is the SKIDAS. I'd like for you all to join."

"SKIDAS?" James repeated. "What does that stand for?"

Harry and Remus both smirked and answered as one. "The Society for Kicking that Infernal Dumbledore's Arse Skywards."

The decision to join was unanimous.

* * *

_This chapter was entirely fun, once I managed to write it. You know that saying; third time's a charm? It certainly proved true for this story. I started the chapter once and got stuck after a couple of paragraphs. Then it happened again. And then finally I started the chapter, kept writing the chapter, and eventually finished the chapter. Yay for that._ ISC – Certainly sounds like a good combo, though the yellow sounds less so. And I've never had nailpolish in my teeth, though I tend to scrape it off and get it all over my clothes. I skipped the silver for the formal when I bought a really nifty bright pink earlier in the day and wore that instead. I still have traces of that, as I've been far too busy goofing off with my holidays to do my nails. That's one thing I'll be doing this weekend, if not before. Ooh, sounds good, though I don't have a yellow. I've kept an eye out, but it's as difficult to find as green. Glad you liked the chapter! And I did have a happy Thursday, as it was two days after my exams were over. I spent the entire day on the Internet and chatted with my friends. Though skipping lunch left me hungry, I wasn't allowed food in the library. Anyway, thanks for reviewing!  
_  
Another thanks to you all for reviewing!_

_And as it's vaguely near that time of year, let me wish you happy holidays of all kinds, lengths and weather._

_Oh! And another note, the bear Moony conjured currently exists in my lounge room. Mum's first foray into the world of singing stuffed critters. We now have four. _

_Hope you enjoyed the chapter!_

_S. Wolf_


	13. Cousin Frank

_**Death's Manager**_

_Courtesy of SilverWolf7007_

_**Chapter Thirteen – Cousin Frank**_

_**Or, The Chapter in Which We Deviate From the Normal Procedure and Merge Our Story Arcs, Possibly Due to Frank's Influence**_

There was a beach. Well, technically there were a lot of beaches, but one in particular had caught Jenissa's attention.

And that was because of Frank.

After finding out that he was staying near a private beach somewhere, it hadn't been hard to find him. When he stayed in one place for longer than a day or two, that place tended to change somewhat to reflect the presence of Frank.

Beaches did not normally have pink sand.

As was usual for beaches, there were seagulls everywhere. The difference was that these seagulls were rather glittery. Herring swore that he had seen a green one.

The two of them made their way across the glittering pink beach to the small brick house, but stopped when they spotted Frank further down the beach.

He was not alone.

Jenissa growled. "I can't take my eyes off that boy for a _minute_!"

Herring sighed from around her wrist. "Now, now, Nissa, we're not here to kill James. We're here to speak to Frank. Remember?"

She sighed irritably. "Yes, I know. But still, with Jimmy wandering off like this…"

"_Jenissa_…"

"Fine. Let's go speak to Frank. And maybe scare Jim a bit."

Herring rolled his eyes.

Frank and James were relaxing on yellow and blue striped banana lounges in the sun. James was wearing sunglasses, black shorts and a dark red t-shirt. Frank, of course, was wearing his glittery blue robe.

"Man, Frank, even for sunbaking you wear that damn thing?" Herring asked in amusement as Jenissa came within speaking distance of the two.

James raised his sunglasses to reveal his equally amused gold eyes. "I think for Frank it's referred to as sun-_bleaching_. And would you really want to see him in anything less?"

Herring shuddered. "I take it back, I take it back!"

Frank turned his eye-sockets to the vampires and the snake. "So, what brings you here to my humble beach?"

Jenissa smiled. "Funny you should ask that…"

* * *

Theodore, still leaning against the closest desk trying to catch his breath, had become the centre of attention in the Transfiguration classroom.

"Penguins," Minerva said flatly. "If it weren't for the fact that we were spying on evolving cheese, I would be quite sceptical."

"I'm going to write a letter," Luna announced suddenly. "Excuse me." She stood and wandered out of the door that Theodore had left open.

Everyone blinked after her for a moment before the reality of the situation began to sink back in again.

"Shit," Bast summed up succinctly. "This is _not_ good."

* * *

Time is a funny thing.

When it chooses to, it can pass differently in certain places.

This explains that while it was still mid-afternoon at Hogwarts, night was falling at the office of Death.

Tom was staring at the eight other people occupying his office, having just realised what time it was, and that the office was probably too small for them to sleep in.

And there was no way in hell he was going to take any of them home with him.

Really. No way.

Eventually though, it was inevitable. Some of them were going to have to go home with him – because Harry refused outright to send any of them back before they had all had the chance to prank Death.

Admittedly not everyone was thrilled with the opportunity – but the general decision was to make the most of it.

"Right," Harry said suddenly. "I have to be here when Death arrives in the morning, as there is one finishing touch to the decorations I need to take care of personally. Damon, I've read your notes, so you'll also need to stay here. Sylvan, I don't want to let you out of my sight." He looked over at his parents, Sirius and Remus. "Not that I don't love you all, but you're heading home with Tom. Cedric, you can probably go either way, so take your pick."

Cedric snorted. "Well, let me see, I can either head to the house of Death's manager and listen to those four reminisce all night, or I can stay here."

"Right then," Toms said with a nod. "Cedric, I'm no longer speaking to you, as you're deserting me. You four, if you're ready to leave…?"

It wasn't long until Harry, Cedric, Sylvan and Damon were relaxing in their beanbags in peaceful silence.

Ten minutes almost passed.

"Sylvan, have you died over the past ten minutes or so?" Harry asked suddenly.

The blond vampire blinked in utter confusion. "Uh, no?"

"Well, why the hell are you so quiet, then? Normally we can never shut you up."

He shrugged. "I don't know. I was just trying to think of something else to do to Death…oh. I've thought of it." He stood and made his way over to Tom's desk, seating himself at it and finding a pen and some paper.

"You're going to write him a nasty letter?" Cedric asked dryly.

Sylvan glared. "No, and just for that, I'm keeping my plan a secret."

Harry, Cedric and Damon all pouted.

Sylvan ignored them.

They spent most of the night trying to get it out of him.

They failed.

* * *

Jenissa had made herself comfortable on James's beach towel before she actually got around to explaining anything.

Herring, on the other hand, had decided that Frank's shoulder would make a nice perch, and was currently wrapped around the skeleton's neck.

In the short while it took her to do that, Time worked its odd magic and delivered two letters.

The first arrived with Hedwig, and was written on parchment. The second was written on paper and had appeared out of nowhere.

They were both addressed to Frank.

Jenissa, James and Herring all looked on eagerly as he opened them.

* * *

'_Dear Frank,_

_Oh yes, the owl is Hedwig, she belongs to Harry. Please keep her with you for now, as he isn't here to use her anyway. That is, unless you wish to send a reply with her. But that is entirely up to you._

_There is a penguin army and an evolved cheese civilisation attempting to take over Hogwarts. If you have any suggestions, or advice, or a good escape route, please write back to me soon. I would so love to hear from you._

_I hope you are having a good holiday at the beach._

_Love Luna'_

'_Oh Frankie boy, remember me?_

Yes, it is I. No, I don't want your help with any redecoration this time.

_Actually, I was wondering if you'd like to show up at Death's office sometime tomorrow? That could prove to be…amusing._

_It's all Harry's fault that we're pranking Death. Honest. Well, Tom's too._

_Hope you can make it._

_Sylvan'_

_

* * *

_

No one had really thought of anything meaningful, helpful, useful, or at all sensible while Luna was gone, nor after she had returned.

Half an hour after she did so, while the group was discussing half-hearted battle plans while Dobby continued to spy, Hedwig flew in the window (yes, Time was being tricky again).

Luna smiled and accepted the letter the owl had brought her.

'_Dear Luna,_

_I'm gonna swing by my cousin's office tomorrow and pick up some reinforcements (read: Harry and co) before heading on down to Hogwarts to help you guys out._

_Don't worry, the cavalry's a-coming!_

_And yes, I'm having a lovely holiday. Thanks for asking. See you soon._

_Love Frank_

_PS. What type of cheese?'_

The blonde Ravenclaw looked up and gave the other occupants of the room a delighted smile.

Draco raised an eyebrow at her. "Good news?"

"I would say so. Death's cousin Frank is going to bring Harry home, as well as a few friends, and they're going to save Hogwarts. Then I suppose we will be taking Dumbles out, also."

Somehow, the thought of Death's cousin showing up wasn't as comforting to everyone else as it was to Luna.

Bast, however, was grinning at their distress. "Don't worry so much!" he said with a laugh. "Frank's a good guy, and with Harry back…well, what could go wrong?"

Blaise groaned. "You just _had_ to ask, didn't you?"

* * *

James blinked at Frank. "But I don't _want_ to help rescue Hogwarts from penguins and cheese."

Frank sighed. "I'm afraid you don't get a choice, Jimmy. You can come willingly, or I could make you come."

"Or worse," Jenissa added sweetly. "_I _could make you come."

"And I'd help," Herring added.

Outnumbered, James gave in. "Fine, I'll help. But don't think I'm happy about it."

"No fear of _that_," Frank murmured. James glared. "Sorry. Look, it needs doing. And do you really think that Godric, Rowena, Helga and Salazar would forgive you if anything happened to their school?"

James winced. "I guess you're right. And with my luck, they'd come back just to haunt me for it."

"In that case, we need to go visit my cousin."

Jenissa frowned. "How are we going to help save Hogwarts by visiting Death's office?"

Frank turned and grinned. Admittedly that was his usual expression, but the green light flickering in a seemingly amused way in his eye sockets gave him away. "You'll see."

Reluctantly, they followed him.

* * *

_Tada, new chapter! Yay for me. It was fun. _

_Kurai Shinigami – (Grins) Glad you like the bear. And the ducks. And the chapter. Yep, Dumbles will be rebelled against muchly. _

_I-ShaveClowns – Eeep. Glad you like it so much. Er, heh. Thanks heaps._

_Shinigami – Aw man, now I feel all guilty-like. But, uh, I'm afraid the penguins' evilness is here to stay. Sorry. Hope you still read and all…_

_Thanks again, everyone, I adore you all!_

_S. Wolf_


End file.
